Education leaders in Scotland have rejected the idea that school Christmas shows and nativities could go ahead with parents in attendance if they presented their Covid passports when arriving.

MSPs were told today that this was an unreasonable burden to place on headteachers at a time when they are under exceptional pressure.

Education leaders giving evidence at this morning’s meeting of the Scottish Parliament’s Covid-19 Recovery Committee were asked if - in the words of committee member and SNP MSP Jim Fairlie - they would have “any confidence to allow parents into the school [for Christmas shows and nativity plays] if they had a Covid passport or a negative lateral flow test”.

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Earlier, Tory MSP Murdo Fraser had questioned the logic of current rules which prevented parents from attending school shows even though they could still go to crowded theatres and cinemas. He suggested that decisions on whether to go ahead with nativities could be made by individual schools and local authorities rather than nationally.

Replying to Mr Fairlie, Larry Flanagan, the EIS teaching union general secretary, said: “Outside of schools I’m in favour of Covid passports - I understand that if I want to go to the pub or the Celtic game, I have to show my vaccine passport - [but] what would a school do if some parents objected to not being allowed into the nativity play because they objected to getting the vaccine?

“Would the school have to then become the gatekeeper to who was allowed in and who wasn’t allowed in?

Mr Flanagan said: “You’d be placing schools in quite an invidious situation.

“It’s not the Theatre Royal, they’re not commercial enterprises that have to operate the rules in order to make their profit.

“So while I can see the validity in what you’re suggesting, it may actually be quite divisive, because only some parents could get in and some would have to be turned away, and I don’t think school leadership teams at this time really need that additional headache at this time of year.”

While Mr Flanagan conceded that the principle of schools allowing entry to Christmas shows where evidence of vaccination could be produced “sounds inviting”, he underlined that “operationally it could be very difficult for schools”.

Jim Thewliss, general secretary of School Leaders Scotland (SLS), echoed Mr Flanagan’s comments: “If you’re bringing...round about 250 or 200 parents into the school - some of whom have their passports, some of whom don’t - it’s an unreasonable and unworkable way of trying to run any sort of event.”

He added: “School leadership teams are hugely under the cosh at the moment, just keeping the school working and keeping young people educated. To try and get them to [monitor parents’ Covid passports] and put them in a situation where it’s going to be very stressful and very confrontational for them, I think is an impractical way of taking things forward.”

Gary Greenhorn, co-chair of the resources network at national education directors’ body ADES, said: “School management teams are absolutely stretched just now to the limit.”

He said that asking school leaders to check parents’ vaccine status before Christmas shows would “add bureaucracy and workload at a time when we’re actually trying to minimise bureaucracy and workload”.

In response to Mr Fraser’s earlier question about whether schools and local authorities should consider deviating from national guidance and allowing parents into Christmas shows, Mr Greenhorn said that, while there was some room for local interpretation, “the primary concern is to keep schools safe”.

Mr Thewliss said schools differed from cinemas and football grounds because of the impact of closures on pupils.

“If you close down a cinema, you close down a cinema; if you close down a school, you’re disrupting young people’s education,” said the SLS general secretary.

Mr Thewliss added: “I would not wish to be in a position where we were closing a school on account of a spread of the virus that has arisen through something that did not need to happen.”