THE Government's message that 'schools are safe' has been slammed as 'not true' by the secretary of the Cumbrian branch of the National Education Union.

Chris Brooksbank is calling for more protection of staff members after Department of Education figures revealed that 20 teachers and school leaders in Cumbria state schools were absent with either a suspected or confirmed case of Covid-19 on one day last year.

Mr Brooksbank said: "Only 20 out of over 2,000 teachers - this seems a remarkably low figure and doesn't really reflect the information that we are getting.

"It is clear that schools are a significant point of transmission of Covid and clear that we need to do more to protect staff in schools.

"We all know that the message from ministers that schools are safe is not true."

Mr Brooksbank said schools were doing their 'very best' to come to terms with Covid and support families.

"We do need to do more and have been wanting to engage with Government since we published our return plan in June last year," he said.

"I am delighted that in Cumbria we are working well with the local authority and the vast majority of schools are listening to each other developing new ideas and trying to find local solutions.

"We still do have some issues in a few places but are keen to work with those schools to help resolve the issues and reassure staff, parents and the wider community but this is not the general picture - schools are doing their very best to come to terms with Covid and still support all our children and families."

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said England's schools would reopen 'as fast as possible' as he faced Tory pressure to set out a timetable for pupils to return.

The Prime Minister said the Government would be 'looking at the potential of relaxing some measures' as England's lockdown restrictions are reviewed on February 15 but could not guarantee that pupils would return to classes before Easter.

"There's nothing I want to do more than reopen schools, I've fought to keep schools open for as long as I possibly could," Mr Johnson said.

"We want to see schools back as fast as possible, we want to do that in a way that is consistent with fighting the epidemic and keeping the infection rate down."

The Prime Minister faced pressure to set out a timetable for pupils to return to class - currently only vulnerable children and those whose parents are key workers are attending school, with home learning for all others.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said the Government would examine the data 'and that will inform what we may or may not be able to ease from (February) 15 onwards'.