All secondary schools and colleges in Wales will be closed next week, to help stop the spread of coronavirus, the education minister Kirsty Williams announced today.

Pupils will move to online learning from Monday, 14 December, as part of a ‘national effort to reduce transmission of coronavirus’.

The minister said she felt it was important to make a ‘clear, national direction’ to take pressure off individual schools, colleges, local authorities, parents and carers, and the decision followed expert advice from Wales’s chief medical officer showing that the public health situation in Wales was deteriorating.

But younger pupils will not be affected.

“We recognise, as we did during the firebreak, that it is more difficult for primary and special school age children to undertake self-directed learning. That is why we are encouraging primary and special schools to continue to stay open," the minister said.

And the term will finish even earlier for one Ceredigion secondary school.

Ysgol Gyfun Aberaeron is shutting today until the new year, after more cases of Covid in the school caused staffing challenges.

Pupils at will be taught remotely from tomorrow until the end of term, the council announced at 4pm this afternoon.

Several contact groups at the school are already self-isolating because they are close links to a confirmed Covid-19 case at school. These pupils and staff must stay at home to reduce the potential spread of the virus to family, friends and the wider community, the council said.

"Due to staffing challenges, the whole school will close and move to distance learning," the spokesperson added.

All parents have been contacted by the school.