Pupils in Scotland could go back to school on alternating weeks, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said.
The Scottish Government is considering a range of measures which could see Scottish schools return as coronavirus lockdown is eased across the country.
But Sturgeon warned Scotland was not currently ready to end lockdown.
A report by the Sunday Times earlier this week suggested schools could return in May, but Deputy First Minister told BBC Scotland that parents should expect schools to remain closed until at least the summer holidays.
Today Sturgeon said: “I think some countries have perhaps had some children in school go back.
“There has been some talk, and it is certainly an option that has to be considered, although we might not do it, some kids go one week, other kids go the next week, so that there’s the ability to have smaller classes.
“ These are the kind of options we are dealing with. ”
Her remarks echoed comments she made in an interview with Heart Scotland Drive: “We talk about schools being closed and then open again, it might not be that binary. We might have kids going back to school for certain days a week, we may have to have, you know, children in a classroom so that we can have social distancing."
But Larry Flanagan, who leads Scotland’s biggest teaching union, said: “Nobody is suggesting schools are going to be reopening before the summer. How they reopen in August is still very much up in the air.”
“If social distancing is in place, in practical terms, schools can’t reopen in the normal sense.”
"I don’t think you could operate schools with a different set of guidelines from those applied everywhere else.
“You couldn’t say social distancing is two metres in the supermarket, but one metre in a school.”
