Premier: Start to school year delayed for almost all year levels as Covid peak anticipated

The start to the Queensland school year will be delayed for almost all year levels as health officials expect the omicron variant of the Covid virus to peak at the end of the month.

The start to the school year will be delayed by a fortnight for the majority of students to avoid pupils returning to school at what is expected to be the peak of the COVID-19 influx.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Pałaszczuk said all primary and high school students would now start their school year on Monday, February 7 instead of January 24, while Year 11 and 12’s would start via online learning on January 31.

“Projections at the moment are that New South Wales and Victoria will reach their (Covid) peak before Queensland,” she said during a press conference this morning.

“Queensland is expected to reach their peak in the last week in January and first week of February.

“Therefore, is not desirable to have our children at school during the peak of this wave. … Parents can be confident their children will not be going to school during the peak of this wave.”

“Our year 11 and 12s will commence remote learning from 31st of January.”

Children in the 5-11 years old age group are eligible for Covid vaccinations from Monday. Picture: Supplied

Ms Pałaszczuk said an extra week would be added to the school year in December because of the “important” delay.

“There will be an extra week of school at the end of the year in December,” she said.

“It won’t end on Friday, December 9 it will end on Friday, December 16,” she said.

Schools would remain open for vulnerable children and children of essential workers, as happened during Covid lockdowns in 2020 and 2021.

The premier said the delay would also give more time for children in the 5-11 age group to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, with the age group eligible to receiving the vaccination from tomorrow.

“Please book your children to be vaccinated. It is not mandatory… but we are encouraging your children to be vaccinated,” she said.

Education Minister Grace Grace said the government would have “loved nothing more than to have face-to-face learning” but this was a common sense decision to allow more time to give children time to be vaccinated and avoid the Omicron peak.

The start to the Queensland school year for 2022 as been delayed for a fortnight, except for seniors. Picture: Supplied

She said the government realised this year would be disrupted by outbreaks at schools and staff who couldn’t come to work due to being sick themselves and wanted to give some certainty to the beginning of school.

It would impact all schools and sessional kindergarten.

She said only year 11s and 12s would be remote learning, with the rest of children getting an extended holiday period.

Ms Grace said teachers would be briefed from today and the Education Queensland website would contain a list of information, including frequently asked questions.

She said it was “not an ideal situation but obviously we want to ensure as much as possible we provide certainty”.

The Minister said children who attended school will be provided with supervision, but won’t be taught classes.

Education Minister Grace Grace. Picture: Zak Simmonds

She said parents could access Education Queensland’s online learning materials to conduct their own lessons from home if they wished, but it was not a requirement.

“This delay to the school term will mean there won’t be any remote teaching being delivered during this time except for year 11s and 12s,” she said.

She said teachers would not need to take an extension of their holidays, and would be working very hard to get prepared for the school year.

Ms Grace could not say whether the delay might be extended if required.

“I don’t think there’s guarantees now for anything,” she said.

The education Minister said health advice indicated even one dose for would provide children with good protection before they began their school year.

Queensland’s Chief Health Officer, John Gerrard said there were 18,000 cases of Covid-19 recorded in the state as of Sunday morning, but 4320 of those where self-reported by people who had taken a Rapid Antigent Test (RAT) at home.
He said there were 80,563 active Covid cases in the state, with 380 people in hospital.

“We 22 of those people in intensive care units, of whom five are ventilated,” he said.

“
Our doctors tell us the patients not ventilated are somewhat sicker than they were previous times.”
Dr Gerrard said he realises there would be more cases in the community, such as people who have symptoms but do not get themselves tested, or those who might have mild symptoms and not realise they have coronavirus.

“But, that’s exactly what we expected and what is necessary for this virus to become endemic in the community. It has to happen this way,” he said.

“The next few weeks will be a challenge, particulaly on our health care system.”

Originally published as Premier: Start to school year delayed for almost all year levels as Covid peak anticipated