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Calderdale Council in West Yorkshire has joined Liverpool, Bury and Hartlepool in advising their schools to stay closed. Pupils are due to start returning from next month – beginning with reception, Years 1 and 6 – with half-sized classes, one-way corridors and staggered breaks. But teachers’ union NASUWT claims only five percent of teachers believe it will be safe for children to return next month.

A survey, of nearly 29,000 members in England, found nine in 10 teachers consider social distancing will be impossible or will present major issues.

A similar proportion are not confident that the proposed measures will protect their health or the health of pupils. Some 87 percent of teachers believe that PPE is essential to protect staff.

Union bosses, who want members to stay at home through the summer, also warn it will “not be safe” to mark pupils’ books.

Members of the National Education Union – the UK’s biggest teaching organisation – will be told to go through a 20-page checklist before returning to work. They will be deemed safe only if they answer “yes” to every question, says the NEU.

But a Department of Education spokesman said: “We want children back in schools as soon as possible because being with teachers and friends is so important for their education and wellbeing.

“Plans for a cautious, phased return of some years from June 1, at the earliest, are based on the best scientific and medical advice.

“We have engaged closely with a range of relevant organisations, including the unions, including organising for them to hear directly from the Government’s scientific advisers last Friday, and we will continue to do so.

“We have also published detailed guidance on the protective measures schools should take.”

Professor John Edmunds, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, admitted that children are less likely to transmit coronavirus to others.

But he told the House of Lords science and technology committee: “Clearly, the decision to open primary schools or not is a political one, it’s not a scientific decision.

“Scientists can offer some advice. It looks like the risk to children is low.”

A final decision on a June 1 return to the classroom is expected this week.

Education campaigners and parents are hoping that Downing Street will press ahead with its plans for primary schools – with secondary schools following shortly afterwards.

Former Labour prime minister Tony Blair said Boris Johnson’s administration was right to start reopening schools as some children will have received “no education at all” during closures.

Teaching unions were expected to meet Education Secretary Gavin Williamson yesterday as part of a weekly conference on the impact of Covid-19.

It has also emerged a coronavirus tracing app is not be ready. Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey said it is not a “condition” to have the app up and running before primary schools return.

But the Government’s guidance on May 12 said track and trace will “play an important role” in preventing new outbreaks of the virus. And the key part of that programme is the app, which will work with 21,000 contact tracers to ensure people who have been exposed isolate quickly.

Yet the app’s launch has now been delayed from mid-May to “in the coming weeks”.

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