A school principal has said getting students back into school at second level will be much more challenging than primary schools.

Alan Mongey is principal of Colaiste Bhaile Chlair in Claregalway, and also president of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals.

He told Newstalk Breakfast it is a harder situation to control.

"I suppose the best guess is that probably listening to the minister yesterday and last night that social distancing will still be in place and obviously the level of that social  distracting will depend on the public health advice at the time.

"But I suppose we get some solace form the fact that he mentioned that a roadmap would be developed over the next two weeks or so".

"But I think things like remote learning will still be in place anyway, so that's something that schools are probably going to have to prepare for".

"Most school principals are planning for a return in September anyway, but obviously there's going to be significant challenges around that."

He said social distancing with teenagers is hard to do "at the best of times" and that "social distracting with one metre is still going to be a significant challenge".

But he also said a one metre rule would make things easier.

"You would able to get considerably more students into those classrooms - but there are a lot of schools around the country that would have very small classrooms."

"Post-primary schools are very different than primary schools.

"Primary schools have one teacher all day long and it's easier to form pods and groups of students.

"But in a second-level school, you have students moving into multiple option classes - so the constraints and difficulties in post-primary schools are much more challenging".