"Sheffield's schools and parents have our full support"

Almost all Sheffield schools have been open throughout lockdown for vulnerable pupils and children of key workers, and all have been supporting home learning.

As always their collaborative ethos has shone through.

We should also applaud our families who have stayed at home and done their best to support home learning.

They should be reassured that families won’t be fined for absence in this next few weeks and can make their own decision about whether to take up a place when it is offered.

As we now contemplate the next steps, our priority is safety.

We want children back at school learning but only when it is safe for this to happen.

Ultimately the decision to open will be made by school leaders and governing bodies, who have our full support to decide what they can do safely and when they can start to bring back more pupils.

We know they are working to provide a clear, safe structure for their schools and we will do everything we can to support them.

Each school is taking a measured approach to planning and carrying out a rigorous risk assessment.

Every school is different and so this will happen in different ways and at different paces in schools across the city.

Some schools will be ready to bring back more children on 1 June, more will do so later that week and perhaps the majority will start to welcome back more pupils from 8 June onwards.

Schools will stagger this process to make sure that they get this right for pupils.

And all of this will only happen if the government confirms that its five criteria for moving to the next stage of easing the lockdown have been achieved.

This includes a national test, track and trace system being in place. We believe that this is critical before schools begin expanding the number of children who are attending.