Children are being told to take textbooks and laptops home as schools prepare for lessons to go virtual in January.

Some pupils are being advised to join pilot sessions to test out technology for distance learning, as headteachers draw up provisional “remote timetables” for next term.

St John Rigby College, in Wigan, said it has been “reacquainting” students with its online learning platform.

The school’s headteacher explained that it is “preparing for all possibilities” and invited students to attend a “one day pilot of online learning to ensure that everybody has the access needed for any eventuality over the weeks and months ahead”.

Meanwhile, City of Norwich School told parents that it was “revisiting plans” that “may lead to a year group or whole school closure”.

The school explained: “If this were to be the case we would, in the first instance, move to the online resources for remote teaching and then, for a longer closure, return to a remote learning timetable with a combination of live and non-live lessons.”

‘Wise to plan’ for school closures in the face of omicron

Elsewhere, schools started to draw up lists of key workers’ children in preparation for January. A primary school in Wiltshire said it was “wise to plan in the unlikely event of school closures”, as it asked parents to submit their job details so it could update its critical workers register.

Arabella Skinner, a director of the parent campaign group UsForThem, said: “Children are being told to take home all their textbooks in case during Christmas holidays they are told not to come back to school in January. Others are being told to take Chromebooks home.

“Schools are thinking we don’t want to be in the mess we were in last year and scrabbling around in January.”

In east London, children at two primary schools managed by the Letta Trust will be sent home with their laptops when they break up for Christmas, in case they cannot come back for the start of next term.

Jo Franklin, head of the trust, said: “Teachers are making sure that everything they plan to teach in the first week of the new term can be taught remotely if it needs to be.”

Among other contingency plans are timetables specially created in case classes need to be taught in “bubbles” next term.

Councils support schools moving to remote learning amid rise in Covid cases

Several councils told schools this week that they backed headteachers who moved to remote learning for the final few days of the autumn term.