Chief inspector of schools Amanda Spielman told BBC Radio 4’s
Today programme: “I would like to hear a much more optimistic approach. I think it should be about what we can do, not about what we can’t do.”

She added: “Many schools are already showing that within the public health guidance that sets the expectation for these bubbles of 15 children there’s a great deal that can be done.

“It is also important to remember that within the bubbles social distancing is an aspiration, not an absolute expectation.”

“The risk to children themselves is very low indeed and those in education should take some confidence from that. It’s about starting from the position of seeing what can we create, how far we can go?”

Britain has suffered far more coronavirus deaths than other nations because it receives so many international travellers, a government minister claims.

Simon Clarke hit back at growing criticism that the lockdown came too late – leading to 50,000 people losing their lives – by arguing it was explained by the UK’s unique vulnerability.

“The truth is that Britain was always going to be hugely exposed to this virus because of some the features of our society,” the local government minister said.

“We are a global travel hub – we were always going to face big challenges.”

However, Mr Clarke rejected a suggestion that was further proof that strict quarantine rules should have been imposed in March, instead of only in mid-June.

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But Professor Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, admitted that failure to rapidly begin widespread testing was the top of “a long list” of his regrets about the UK response. He said scientific advisers were “always looking back” in order to learn lessons as events unfolded.

Prof Ferguson, who resigned from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) in May for breaching lockdown rules, made the extraordinary comments following questions from MPs over why the UK death toll was far higher than the original predictions.

He told the Commons Science and Technology Committee: “We knew the epidemic was doubling every three to four days before lockdown interventions were introduced.

“So had we introduced lockdown measures a week earlier, we would have reduced the final death toll by at least a half.

“So whilst I think the measures, given what we knew about this virus then in terms of its transmission and fatality, were warranted, certainly had we introduced them earlier we would have seen many fewer deaths.”
 

Mr Johnson has told ministers he wants to change the rule within weeks, possibly to bring the UK into line with World Health Organisation guidelines advising people keep a distance of one metre, according to
The Telegraph.

The news comes after the government’s chief scientific officer, Sir Patrick Vallance, suggested the two-metre social distancing measures were not a hard and fast “scientific rule”, Tom Barnes reports.

“It is wrong to portray this as a scientific rule that says it is two metres or nothing – that is not what the advice has been and it is not what the advice is now,” Sir Patrick said at the Downing Street briefing.

Mr Johnson says he wants all pupils back in classrooms by September, after abandoning plans to get more primary school children back in class before England’s summer break – admitting the government had been forced to move “slower than we would have liked in some areas”.

Meanwhile, the prime minister is also under increasing pressure from his own MPs to scrap the two-metre rule in order to prevent further damage to the economy. Mr Johnson “instinctively” wants to relax guidelines, but is concerned about a potential second wave of coronavirus, the Daily Mail reported.

Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith told the Mail reducing the two-metre rule to one metre was the “single most important priority to unlock the economy.”