Queensland schools are to stay open but be student free until the end of term, as lessons move online amid the COVID-19 crisis.
Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk said that while the advice from Chief Health Officers was that schools could remain open, they needed to begin preparing for a potential closure in the coming weeks.
“This will not be a normal school break,’ Ms Palaszczuk said.
“It is vital that parents take responsibility for their children during this time.”
She said children of essential workers could remain at school until 3 April while teachers prepared to move to remote learning.
“We will be asking frontline workers to go above and beyond their normal work situations to help us get through this,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
“That’s not only frontline health professionals and police but people who undertake important work in our supply chain like stacking shelves in supermarkets.”
Minister for Education, Grace Grace said teachers, teacher aides and staff would use the reduced attendance at schools to prepare for a potential move to online learning.
“Currently we have two weeks’ worth of learning available to students to use at home and that will be constantly updated for as long as necessary,” Ms Grace said.
“These student-free days will allow our hard-working teachers and teacher aides to prepare for that.”
She said early childhood education centres and outside hours school care providers would continue as normal.
