Meanwhile, Wigton Moor Primary School in Leeds has reduced singing in assemblies to cut the spread of flu, after one in six children were off or sent home last week.
Sir Gavin Williamson, the former education secretary, said: “What we have learnt is that everything that can be done should be done to keep schools open.
“It is vital to make all efforts to ensure you’ve got continual education, as the people most impacted by closing schools will be children.
“Every study shows that children are always best off in schools, where they have the opportunity to learn with peers in front of teachers. The evidence of the Covid outbreak points to that.”
The closures come weeks after the Covid inquiry found that closing schools during lockdowns “brought ordinary childhood to a halt”.
Baroness Hallett, the inquiry chairman, concluded that lockdowns, including school closures, could have been “avoided entirely” if it had not been for the “too little, too late” approach of the Government.
She said the decision to close schools had a “profound consequence” on children and was a step “taken to protect the adult population”.
