Canberra students will be studying remotely for the rest of term 3 after Chief Minister Andrew Barr announced an extension of the lockdown to Friday, September 17.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Children of essential workers who cannot work from home and vulnerable children will still be able to go to their usual school to be supervised.
Early childhood education and care services and out of school hours care also remain open for children who need to attend.
Masks must be warn by all people aged 12 and over when leaving home.
Mr Barr said the arrangements for term 4 were still being considered with the advice of the Chief Health Officer and that families would find out more details in the first week of the school holidays.
READ MORE:
He said it was too early to speculate on what conditions needed to be met for students to return to school but a run of multiple days of no cases would be required for the lockdown to end.
The ACT recorded 13 new cases in the 24 hours to 8pm Monday. At least eight of those infectious in the community.
Another Canberra school has become a COVID-19 exposure location. St Clare of Assisi Primary School in Conder and the school's outside of school care are closed for deep cleaning.
The Catholic school is listed as a close contact site on Thursday, 26 August from 8am to 3.30pm.
The outside of school care building has been listed as a causal exposure site on the same day from 8am to 8.30am and 4pm to 4.30pm.
St Clare of Assisi Primary School has suspended teacher-led remote learning while the campus remains closed with an aim to have students who need supervision back on site on Thursday.
Australian Education Union ACT branch senior industrial officer Patrick Judge said the announcement gave teachers certainty about the rest of the term.
He said the union had written to the Health and Education Ministers to request priority access to COVID-19 vaccinations for teachers but had not received a response.
Opposition education spokesman Jeremy Hanson said teachers and early childhood educators should be prioritised for vaccination as frontline workers.
An ACT government spokeswoman said planning was well underway for a COVID-19 school vaccination program.
"The details of this school vaccination program - including priority vaccination groupings and timetables - are still being developed, but will be communicated widely once finalised," the spokeswoman said.
"It is important to note that the details of this school vaccination program are also dependent on the provision of sufficient and timely vaccine supply by the Commonwealth Government."
NSW has planned a staged return to school from October 25, but local government areas could return sooner or later than that date depending on the level of transmission. The regional NSW stay-at-home orders will be in place until at least September 10.
Our coverage of the health and safety aspects of this outbreak of COVID-19 in the ACT and the lockdown is free for anyone to access. However, we depend on subscription revenue to support our journalism. If you are able, please subscribe here. If you are already a subscriber, thank you for your support. You can also sign up for our newsletters for regular updates.
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Bookmark canberratimes.com.au
- Download our app
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters
- Follow us on Twitter
- Follow us on Instagram