SCHOOL closure decisions would take account of any specific factors driving coronavirus transmission in areas as well as the wider community infection levels, the First Minister has said. 

Nicola Sturgeon was responding to a call from the teachers' union the EIS about what conditions would trigger schools being closed in the coming weeks should the virus accelerate.

Larry Flanagan, the general secretary, has appealed for schools to be given sufficient notice so teachers can prepare to return to remote learning if needed.

At her daily coronavirus briefing, the First Minister was asked to respond to calls by the EIS for triggers that would require schools to close or revert to blended learning models to be published as part of the tiered strategy.

The First Minister stressed she will “strive to keep schools open”.

But she added: “Within all the tiers we will continue to take judgements on whether that is possible or not.

“We’ve always said that we cannot rule out, in parts of Scotland or Scotland overall, at any stage, reverting to blended learning for a period but we want to avoid that if possible.”

She warned that if the numbers of cases continue to rise, measures around schools may have to be looked at.

She said: “If we do see a continuing acceleration of the spread of the virus and if we have a tiered approach, the further up the tiered approach you go, then considerations about what that means for schools will be ongoing.

“Part of the reason for moving to a tiered approach is to give people greater certainty - if the virus is at this kind of level, here’s the restrictions that will be in place. When we set out the levels, we will set out the basket of metrics that will be used to assess whether part of the country or the country overall moves from one level to another."

She added: "The caveat I have to put on this is that will always involved a degree of judgement and that degree of judgement will always apply to whether schools continue to open normally or whether there is a move to blended learning.

"And the reason there has to be that degree of judgement is that you can have....there will often be different factors driving transmission so you could end up having the same rate per 100,000 for instance in two local authority areas but in one local authority area that may be driven entirely by a factory outbreak that you can take contain in a very different way to how you contain an outbreak that is much more community transmission driven."

She continued: "So will we will look at metrics, we will look at triggers but there always has to be a public health informed judgement applied to these things and that will be true in the decisions we make about schools as well."

Scotland’s chief nursing officer, Professor Fiona McQueen, indicated that any decision to force schools to close will not be as straightforward as the decision taken in March to close all schools and cancel this year’s exam diet.

She said: “We know a lot more about the virus now than we did in March. When we shut down society in March, we were doing that to protect the population because the transmission of the virus was incredibly out of control.

“The schools themselves are very low risk, although they do increase R slightly. The balance of the improvement in children’s chances, children’s opportunities, their education, mental health and wellbeing is incredibly powerful.”

She added: “Although there have been times when either pupils or teachers in schools have tested positive, the number of actual outbreaks in schools across Scotland has been incredibly low.

“We have a lot more reliable information to us that helps support that decision-making with the ultimate aim to keep schools open as long as it’s safe for children and young people and, of course, teachers and support staff.”

The Sunday National revealed at the weekend that future school closures are under consideration in the Scottish Government's new systems for local restrictions.

The First Minister will hold discussions with Holyrood political leaders tomorrow before publishing her tiered framework by the end of the week.

It will be debated in the Scottish Parliament when MSPs return after current recess ends on Sunday.

It is expected that the tiered strategy, similar to Boris Johnson's system for regional curbs in England, could come into force as temporary hospitality restrictions are due to expire on Monday 26 October.

School closures are not included in the system of alerts for England, but the First Minister has suggested she would want the Scottish system to be tougher.