School holidays could start and end earlier as part of Scotland’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

First minister Nicola Sturgeon confirmed today that this was one of many possibilities being looked at, after her deputy - education secretary John Swinney - was reported to have raised the possibility.

At the start of a week when the Scottish government intends to reveal more details about possible ways out of the current lockdown, she was asked about the prospect of the summer holidays being brought forward, during her daily coronavirus briefing this afternoon.

Ms Sturgeon said the answer was the same as to many questions about what might happen over the next few months: “Maybe”.

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Ms Sturgeon had been asked at the briefing if the 2020-21 school year might now start earlier in August - with the current school year ending in late May or early June - and whether this was based on the assumption that pupils would not return to school until after the summer holiday.

The first minister said: “We are looking at different options about how we could safely start to restore some normality, including in terms of schools, without jeopardising the objective of keeping the virus as suppressed as we need to keep it.

“So we’re looking at some options about what could you do in terms of schools, and how do we mitigate an interruption to children’s education, as we go.

“We’re not taking firm decisions on any of this yet. I said in my opening remarks, in the coming days as the next iteration of the document we set out last Thursday, we’ll say a bit more about the specific options that we are considering.

“None of that means that they will definitely happen anytime soon, but the options we’re considering, how we’re assessing them, and what impact we think they would have on virus - we will, as we go, set out as much of this as we can.”

She underlined again that, on the issue of summer holidays and many other questions, “we’re not yet in a position to answer it definitively”.

In comments reported in The Times today, Mr Swinney indicated that moving school summer holiday dates was a possibility, saying: “We need to look at every option that enables us to navigate our way through this.”

He stressed that the advice of public health experts would be crucial in the decision-making, and added: “We do not yet know what the autumn and winter will be like with Covid. There may well be an argument for saying that there might be a need to get schools in earlier than when they would generally normally resume in August because of that, and because young people have missed out on formal schooling.”

He added: “These are subjects that we are exploring with our partners to establish what [are] the most appropriate steps to take forward.”