Education Minister Kirsty Williams is expected to announce plans for the youngest children to go back to school in Wales after half term.
The Welsh Government has said previously it would give two weeks notice of any back to school plans if the situation with the pandemic eases.
First Minister Mark Drakeford said on January 29 that the youngest learners, aged up to seven in the Foundation Phase, will start returning to classrooms after February half term in a flexible way, but only if coronavirus rates continued to fall.
Latest figures from Public Health Wales on Thursday, February 4 show the Wales coronavirus infection rate stood at 126.5 per 100,000 people for the seven days to January 30, a decrease from 127.1 the previous day.
The infection rate is now around the same level as it was in early October.
Ms Williams will lead today’s Welsh Government coronavirus briefing when she is expected to give more details about how the youngest children will go back after half term on February 22.
It will start at 12.15pm and there will be live updates here throughout the day.
She also said more details will be published separately today on how assessments replacing exams will be graded and moderated.
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Neil Butler, regional representative of the teaching union NASUWT, said they were waiting with “bated breath” to see what the announcement had to say and that they wouldn’t support the return to schools without significant assurances about teachers’ safety.
“The joint education unions have given a large number of mitigations we want to see before this happens,” he told BBC Radio Wales. “We have yet to hear back from the Welsh Government as to whether any of those mitigations have been accepted.
“We know there is going to be the operational guidance, which is a key document, but we have had no indication of what is going to be changed in that. If the operational guidance has taken nothing on board in terms of the joint union mitigation list, then we are not going to be able to support this return on February 22.”
In England, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said March 8 was the earliest date schools could reopen and that “depends on lots of things going right”.
In Northern Ireland pupils will not return to school until March 8 at the earliest while Scotland’s youngest pupils are likely to return to the classroom full time from February 22 as schools start a phased reopening.
-- to www.walesonline.co.uk
