First minister Nicola Sturgeon has come under pressure to increase the time in school that some secondary students will receive from Monday.

The call came at First Minister’s Questions this afternoon after it emerged that some school plans might involve half a day per week in school for students, with other plans amounting to a full day each week but no live online lessons.

The Scottish Conservatives’ leader, Ruth Davidson, said parents were expecting “a significant change” next week in the wake of the first minister’s surprise announcement last week that all secondary students would start to receive some time in school each week from Monday 15 March.

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Before Ms Sturgeon’s statement on 2 March, it was expected that all primary pupils would return but just senior secondary students would receive in-person teaching, with S1-3 returning after the Easter break.

Schools reopening: Call for more teaching time

Now, after the revised plans were revealed last week, Ms Davidson said letters were starting to arrive from secondary schools detailing their plans, and families were finding they were getting “something less than billed”.

In Edinburgh, she said, one parent was told their child would receive half a day per week of in-school teaching - something Ms Davidson said that parent had described as “clearly ridiculous and a token gesture”.

In Aberdeen, Ms Davidson said, another parent was “devastated” to learn that her son would receive two three-hour sessions, and a father in Fife had been told that his daughter would receive a full day in school each week but no more live online lessons. Ms Davidson said the father had described the plans as “an absolute joke”.

Management teams are working their backsides off right now to get this sorted for Monday. Getting heartily fed up with MSPs - on all sides - putting their tuppence’ worth in with absolutely zero knowledge of what they are talking about. https://t.co/pYHqJy8hlE

- Every Day’s a School Day (@MsSammyMcHugh) March 9, 2021

Ms Davidson said: “Pupils and parents were promised a return to the classroom but from the information they are now getting sent, it is clear that for many this will now amount to only a few hours a week at best.

“Can the first minister look those parents in the eye and say that this is the significant progress that she has claimed? Will she look again at these plans in order to increase the actual amount of teaching time that pupils will get?”

Ms Sturgeon said that the return to full-time in-school teaching for all primary pupils was a significant change and that the government was determined to try to get all secondary students back before Easter even if, in some cases, that was on a “fairly minimal basis”. She said the “important objective” was for the full time return of all pupils after the Easter holidays.

Ms Sturgeon said: “I don’t stand here and say this is perfect but we need to balance all of this, to get schools back and to get schools back in a way that doesn’t then set back progress in the country overall.

“In terms of continuing to look at all of this, the deputy first minister does that on an ongoing basis with the partners in the [Scottish government’s] education recovery group to make sure we are striking the best balance and the right balance overall.

“But let me repeat again the most important objective that we are seeking to fulfil right now is to get all young people back to school full-time after the Easter holidays.”

The news of the arrangements that schools are making for the return next week comes after secondary school leaders were blindsided last week by the announcement that all secondary students would be returning for some in-person teaching from Monday 15 March, and given just over a week to write a timetable that will last for just three weeks.

One school leader, writing for Tes Scotland on the day of the announcement, said it was the “worst-case scenario”, while the general secretary of secondary headteachers’ organisation School Leaders Scotland described the decision as “a shock to us all and...as unforeseen as it was unwelcome”.

Yesterday, education secretary and deputy first minister John Swinney announced new “guidance on schools reopening”.

Most notably, he said that work was being done to provide secondary schools with additional test kits to allow them to extend the offer of twice-weekly at-home lateral flow testing to all secondary students after the Easter holidays.