IT is clear that the current policy of isolating complete bubbles in schools is not working. At the most recent count, 375,000 schoolchildren were isolating at home but only four per cent of them were confirmed as having Covid.

So 96 per cent of children without Covid were suffering educationally and socially, plus there has been great disruption among their households. The average child has missed 115 days of face-to-face education since the pandemic began, and the effects, as ever, will be felt hardest in the most deprived areas.

But it is not clear what policy should replace it.

There is growing weight behind the idea of daily testing before pupils enter school, which sounds sensible but offers great practical difficulties: how do you contain hundreds of children as they wait for their early morning results?

The Government, then, has some difficult decisions to make – and make them it must. It has to give schools clear guidance so they can spend the summer preparing.

The education recovery is becoming a real concern. Only yesterday, the recently resigned catch-up tsar, Sir Kevan Collins, said: "Our country has responded in a way which compared to some others is frankly a bit feeble. This scale of shock requires a massive national effort to recover."

The Government has to step up and began to organise that national effort in our schools.