Students and teachers in NSW will be required to take two rapid antigen tests a week and be subjected to mask mandates when school returns for term one.
Premier Dominic Perrottet and Education Minister Sarah Mitchell unveiled the government's much anticipated return-to-school plan on Sunday morning, which was presented to national cabinet days earlier.
"We're ready for a COVID smart start to 2022 and there is a range of measures we will have in place to ensure that our parents and students will feel confident from day one," Ms Mitchell said.
She said more than 6 million rapid antigen tests (RATs) would be delivered to 3,000 schools by Tuesday evening, with each student and teacher being required to be tested twice a week.
It will be up to schools to enforce the testing regime.
The kits are also being distributed for teachers at over 5,500 early childhood centres.
Mask wearing will be mandatory for teachers and secondary students, while being highly recommended for pupils in Year 3 and above in primary school.
COVID-safe plans will also be required for excursion and other activities such as music, sports and assemblies — a measure which was enforced in the past.
Additionally, schools will be reducing intermingling between year groups and limited visitors to school grounds.
Ms Mitchell says distributing the RAT kits, as well as air purifiers and 8 million surgical masks, had been a "massive logistical effort".
"This has been a military style operation and it has taken an army to get it up and running," she said.
She said health authorities would no longer be conducting contact tracing and would no longer be closing schools when there was a positive case.
Parents would be required to tell the school principal if their child tests positive and other parents within that cohort would then be advised of the case.
Ms Mitchell said there would also be several contingencies if an outbreak impacts staffing levels at a school.
The school plan comes as the number of patients being treated in hospital with COVID-19 in NSW had dropped for the third time in a week as the state records 34 deaths.
Authorities said the total number being treated in hospital has fallen to 2,712, down 50 from the previous reporting period.
Patients in intensive care also dropped to 189, down from 204.
A total of 20,324 new cases were reported, taken from 6,704 RAT tests 13,620 PCR swabs.
Despite low vaccination rates of one dose in just over 26.5 per cent of children aged five to 11 years, Mr Perrottet has deemed January 28 a "non-negotiable" start of Term 1.
"Young children have already missed a quarter of their schooling life," Mr Perrottet said.
He said there would likely be an uptick of cases when schools open but was "incredibly confident" of the blueprint the government has laid out.
"There will be challenges along the way, there is no doubt that there will be times where we need kids, who have tested positive, and will need to study and learn from home," he said.
He added the government would be procuring up to 150 million RAT kits to help support the sector through the Omicron outbreak.
President of the NSW Teachers Federation Angelo Gavrielatos said he would be closely monitoring any risk mitigation strategies presented by the government.
"We are bracing ourselves for what will inevitably be a disruptive start to the school year," he said.
"Omicron has taught us nowhere is safe."
Of Sunday's 34 COVID-19 fatalities, there were 26 men and eight women who were aged between their 40s and 90s.
Two had received three doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, 23 had received two doses, three had received one dose and six were not vaccinated.
