MICHAEL Gove has said the UK government hopes the staggered reopening of schools in England will go ahead in January.
Officials from Downing Street and the Department for Education met to discuss the issue today amid concerns over the spread of a new strain of coronavirus.
Earlier this month, the government said exam-year students would go back as normal after the Christmas holidays, but the majority of secondary pupils would start the term online to allow headteachers to roll out mass testing of children and staff.
Wales and Scotland have delayed pupils' full-time return to the classroom.
In the north, unions have said schools should stay closed until the middle of next month. All children are to initially return on January 4 for face-to-face learning at a time when the rest of society is in lockdown.
Some post-primary pupils will move to remote learning by the end of the month.
Primary schools, special schools and young people in Years 11-14 will remain in classrooms.
There are concerns about children from different schools mixing when they take transfer tests, which begin on January 9. Hundreds of young people from various bubbles will be brought together in grammar schools on four consecutive weekends.
Mr Gove said the government was confident primary school pupils and Year 11 and Year 13 pupils in England would be able to return in the first week of January, with the rest going back later in the month.
"It is our intention to make sure we can get children back to school as early as possible. We are talking to teachers and headteachers in order to make sure we can deliver effectively. But we all know that there are trade-offs," he said.
"As a country we have decided - and I think this is the right thing to do - that we prioritise children returning to school. But we have a new strain and it is also the case that we have also had, albeit in a very limited way, Christmas mixing, so we do have to remain vigilant.
"We are confident that we will be able to get schools back in good order. Our plan and our timetable is there, and we are working with teachers to deliver it."
Scientists have suggested that the mutated strain could more easily infect children.
Sir Jeremy Farrar, a member of the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, said the arguments for reopening schools in January were "very finely balanced".
"I think the next few weeks going into January are going to be extremely difficult across the whole country," Sir Jeremy, director of the Wellcome Trust, told the Today programme.
"Certainly my own view is that schools opening is an absolute priority. But society - and eventually this is a political decision - will have to balance keeping schools open, if that is possible, with therefore closing down other parts of society.
"It is going be a trade-off between one or other. You cannot have everything. You cannot have the whole of society opening, and schools opening and further education and universities, and keep R below 1 with this variant."
