All NSW school students will be back in the classroom by October 25 as part of changes to the state’s roadmap out of the COVID-19 lockdown.

Premier Dominic Perrottet announced the amendments following a crisis cabinet meeting on Wednesday evening after the state reached its vaccination milestone of 70 per cent double dosage.

The first group of students returning on October 18 will be kindergarten, year one and year 12, with the remaining cohorts now all returning the following week. 

The premier said he was implementing common-sense changes that would speed up life returning to normal. 

“That’s great for kids,” he said on Thursday.

“It’s a major relief for parents and their sanity and I think this is an important decision today and I want to thank all the teachers who are out there getting vaccinated to ensure that we can open our schools as safely as possible.”

NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell welcomed the move to get students back to school sooner.

“As I have said many times, we know that the best learning environment for our children is in the classroom with their teachers and with their friends,” she said.

Teachers must be fully vaccinated to return to classrooms and will still be required to wear masks after the state reaches 80 per cent double dosage.

“We’ve got encouraging numbers already of our staff who are vaccinated and those numbers will go up as that data collection continues in the coming day,” Ms Mitchell said.

About 45,000 teachers across the state have confirmed they are fully vaccinated, she said.

Last week unions voiced concerns some schools were not adequately ventilated and lacked air purifiers in necessary circumstances. 

But Ms Mitchell said they had a number of COVID-safe measures in place and had completed an audit on 2200 public schools across the state.

“I appreciate that for some parents they are a little bit nervous and they want to make sure that it’s a safe learning environment for their children,” she said.

AAP

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