All students in Years 7 to 10 are set to go back to the classroom this month, the State Government has announced.
Year 7 students will resume face-to-face learning from Monday 12 October.
Students in Years 8 to 10 will return from Monday 26 October.
The staggered return is based on the advice of the Victorian Chief Health Officer and is designed to manage the increased movement across the community with the return of staff and students to school.
The approach will allow a full 14 days between stages to account for a full incubation period of the virus and enable schools to work together with parents to support the safe return of students to on-site learning.
It will also allow schools to review the implementation of risk-mitigation measures as all students return.
Primary school students, students studying VCE and VCAL, and students attending specialist schools will return to face-to-face learning in metropolitan Melbourne from Monday 12 October.
Students in rural and regional Victoria are returning to the classroom in a staggered approach from Monday 5 October.
In addition, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the Department of Education and Training (DET) have strategies in place to ensure any potential outbreaks in schools can be quickly controlled.
Any school attended by a student or staff member while infectious will be closed. Deep cleaning, contact tracing, and a review by DHHS staff will occur before the school is reopened.
Opposition education spokeswoman Cindy McLeish said a ban on classroom learning for students in Years 8 to 10 until the end of this month was too late, and accused the Premier of “making decisions up as it goes along”.
“(Daniel) Andrews has had months to develop plans to safely return our kids to classroom learning but instead has been caught up in buck-passing and cover-ups involved with his bungled hotel quarantine,” she said.
