Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon has given her strongest signal yet that she will announce a full-time return to schooling.

Speaking at the Scottish government’s coronavirus briefing this afternoon, she said the decision “won’t go in the opposite direction”.

But Ms Sturgeon said she did not want to pre-empt her announcement, which is due before the Scottish Parliament tomorrow lunchtime. Before the summer holidays, the date of 11 August was targeted for the return of schools throughout Scotland.

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She said today that “it is our central objective for the next three weeks to get schools back full time from 11 August”.

The first minister’s Cabinet met this morning to discuss the decision, but she told the briefing: “I’m duty-bound to announce these decisions to Parliament and I’m going to do that at the risk of getting into trouble from the Presiding Officer.

“I think you know where we’re trying to get to on schools and you’ve probably not heard anything from me today that suggests we’re going in the opposite direction but I’ll announce the detail of those decisions tomorrow.”

“Ensuring that those changes can take place without raising the prevalence of the virus too far is not going to leave us very much room for many other immediate changes,” Ms Sturgeon said.

Earlier in the briefing, the first minister said expected alterations to schooling and shielding are “not going to leave us very much room for immediate changes” elsewhere.

Results of a review of lockdown measures will be revealed to the Scottish Parliament tomorrow.

“We can’t just look at whether an individual change is safe, although that’s an important part of our consideration,” Ms Sturgeon said.

“We also have to consider the cumulative impact of all of the changes we make and we have to be sensible in the order in which we make changes so we don’t create a situation where we are doing too much, too quickly and therefore giving the virus the chance to overwhelm us again.”