Closing schools to tackle Covid puts children’s lives on hold and should be kept to an “absolute minimum”, the head of England’s schools watchdog has said.

Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman spoke out as ministers face growing pressure to keep all schools in England closed after the Christmas holidays.

Amid a surge in Covid cases, teaching unions have told primary school staff it is unsafe to return to work.

The government has said school closures are a “last resort” to curb infections.

Most primary schools in England are expected to open on Monday but secondary schools will reopen on a staggered basis, with exam year pupils returning on 11 January and others returning a week later.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson announced that all of London’s primaries will remain shut to most pupils, after pressure from local councils to reverse an earlier decision to keep only schools in certain boroughs closed.

It means more than one million primary school pupils will now learn from home for at least the first two weeks of term. Vulnerable pupils and the children of key workers will continue to attend school, the government said.

Mr Williamson said the closures were a “last resort and a temporary solution” to help tackle the particularly high infection rates in the capital, which has been driven by a new, fast-spreading variant of the virus.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Ms Spielman said she welcomed the “real consensus that schools should be the last places to close and the first to reopen”.

“It is increasingly clear that children’s lives can’t just be put on hold while we wait for vaccination programmes to take effect, and for waves of infection to subside,” she said.