PUBLIC school attendance rates have soared as teachers welcomed back students for the first time on Monday.
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Students across NSW will go back to school for at least one day a week, with many Year 12 students to attend class more frequently.
"We had 37 per cent of students yesterday [Monday] learning from within their classroom, that builds on our attendance data of last Friday which was 16 per cent," Minister for Education and Early Childhood Learning Sarah Mitchell said.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has outlined a staggered plan for students to return to face-to-face learning.
On Tuesday, May 26, classes will resume for prep, grades 1 and 2 and years 11 and 12. All special schools will also return on this date. On Tuesday, June 9 the remainder of Victorian students (grade 3 to year 10) will return to school.
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"An additional 21 per cent of kids back at school yesterday [is] in line with what we were expecting.
"I couldn't be more pleased with how well it went."
Ms Mitchell said it was a true team effort to ensure that the first day back to class for so many students ran smoothly.
"I just want to thank our teachers, our principals, our school support staff, our students and also our parents and carers who have worked really constructively together to ensure that our measured return to school was a success," she said.
"I'm also really pleased to say that the additional systems that we've put in place in terms of hygiene, the extra cleaning and the supplies going out to our school communities also ran very smoothly.
"If that was an indication of how things will progress over the next week or two, we couldn't be more proud of our public system in NSW and all going well."
Ms Mitchell said the NSW Government was still on track to return all students to the classroom by the end of May.
On Monday, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said individual schools could still be closed if new virus cases are detected.