THE EDUCATION minister has said she wants more evidence before setting a date for more children to return to school in Wales.

Kirsty Williams told the daily coronavirus press briefing that Welsh Government are working with teaching unions when it comes to making any decisions about the future of education in the devolved nation.

She said: "We work very closely with them because when we make a decision to go back into schools or allow more children to go back to school, the members of those unions will be the people that have to operationalise that decision and therefore we need to build confidence amongst parents but also confidence amongst the workforce that it is safe to go back.

"I will not set an arbitrary date for when more children will go back into Welsh schools.

"At this stage we need more evidence about the progression of the pandemic, we more confidence around some of that evidence and build confidence amongst key stakeholders and we need more control over the disease.

"We also need to see the development of the test, trace and protect regime as well. That's a crucial key part of enabling children to go back to school."

Kirsty Williams said at the "forefront of my mind" will be the health and emotional wellbeing of staff and children when they return to school.

She adds: "We will have to recognise that in any environment it is impossible to give 100 per cent guarantees.

"What is incumbent upon me is that we manage those risks as much as possible and we create an environment that is as safe as it possibly can be, so that we can allow more children to go back to school.

"We can't eliminate all risk but we can do our very best to minimise that risk to provide confidence and infrastructure to manage risk."