The government is still pressing ahead with its plan to partially reopen schools next week but the decision is set to be discussed at a crunch meeting today.

Boris Johnson is facing calls from both sides of the argument to either lockdown schools, including those in Kent, or have them operating in January as an "absolute priority".

They are set for a staggered reopening from Monday, with primary schools, Year 11 and 13 pupils, and key workers’ children being sent to class as normal on January 4.

A host of schools were ravaged by staff shortages due to Covid in the lead-up to the Christmas holidays, with many being forced to close classrooms early.

Unions have asked that all schools be closed for the first two weeks to ensure teachers can first be vaccinated, but the government is primed to go ahead with its staggered reopening plan.

Upon reopening next Monday, mass testing is due to be carried at secondary schools, with pupils taking their GCSE and A-level exams returning that day.

Children in the lower years and those in Year 12 will learn remotely before returning to school on January 11.

'We always keep things under review but teachers and head teachers have been working incredibly hard...'

The staggered plan is still the proposal put forward by the government but Michael Gove told Sky News this morning that it was "under review".

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has also reportedly warned colleagues he faces an "enormous battle" to keep secondary schools open in January – suggesting a full school lockdown could be on the cards.

Mr Gove, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said: "Our plan is that primary schools will go back but with secondary schools it will be the case that next week only children in Year 11 and Year 13.

"Those who are doing their GCSEs, their BTECs, their A-levels – those will go back."

"We always keep things under review but teachers and head teachers have been working incredibly hard over the Christmas period in order to prepare for a new testing regime.

"They've been preparing very hard over the course of the holidays and I just think we should all be very grateful that teachers – at the end of what has been a very difficult and challenging year – have been preparing for this."

Mr Gove also said exams would "absolutely" still be going ahead later in 2021.

Meanwhile, Sir Jeremy Farrar, from the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), says the next few weeks are going to be "extremely difficult across the whole country".

"Certainly my own view is that schools opening is an absolute priority," he told the BBC Radio 4.

"But society will have to balance keeping schools open, if that is possible, with therefore closing down other parts of society.

"It is going be a trade-off between one or other. You cannot have everything.

"You cannot have the whole of society opening, and schools opening and further education and universities, and keep R below one with this variant.

"I think there are some very, very tough choices. We are going to see these continued pressures at least over the next two or three months."

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