Practical exams due to be held this week have been postponed due to the Edinburgh schools closures.

The city council made the decision to shut 17 schools last Friday amid safety fears. Around 7600 children are affected by the closures.

Now, the council has announced that practical exams due to take place at the five high schools have been postponed while inspections continue.

The council said in a statement on its website: "We are working closely with the SQA. All practical exams that were due to take place this week have been postponed and will be rearranged.

"We will update students when we have more information."

The schools were all built or refurbished under the same public private partnership (PPP) schemes around ten years ago and the partnership which manages them was unable to provide safety assurances, sparking the closures.

The majority of the 2000 pupils preparing for exams at the five high schools affected resumed lessons on Wednesday.

Senior pupils from three secondaries were able to return to their usual building as they only had partial refurbishments as part of the PPP project but S4-S6 pupils at the two other high schools will attend alternative schools but be taught by their own teachers.

S3 pupils at three of the high schools will return on Thursday.

Lessons resumed for pupils from two primary schools on Wednesday and arrangements are in place for pupils at three more primaries, two from Friday and one from Tuesday.

Children attending one of the additional needs support schools affected will be sent to one of five new locations from Friday, while at the other additional needs support school plans are in place for Thursday and Friday.

It is hoped plans for the remaining primaries will be in place by next Tuesday, the local authority said.

Andrew Kerr, Edinburgh City Council chief executive, said the arrangements had been "a huge logistical exercise".

Closures were prompted across the school community after workers repairing structural issues with the walls at Oxgangs Primary found "further serious defects" with the building on Friday.

Construction group Galliford Try, which acquired responsibility for Oxgangs through its 2014 acquisition of Miller Construction, said it takes its role as contractor "very seriously".

The new arrangements mean 4400 pupils have alternative education provision in place.

Council leader Andrew Burns said: "Having rightly prioritised arrangements for those children taking examinations in the coming weeks, the two special schools were next to be addressed and I'm pleased that these are now in place. I want to pay credit to the chief executive and his team for their work since Friday on what has been a huge logistical challenge for the council.

"We have now put in place alternative education arrangements for the majority of pupils, and work continues to identify alternative options for other primary and S1 to S3 pupils. We will communicate to parents as soon as we have further information."

He added: "The SQA have been very supportive to our situation and I must thank them for the steps they have taken regarding verification and examining visits and help with additional resources."