Dr Graham Gault, director of NAHT Northern Ireland, said: “Given that official statistics show that 4,485 children and 488 school staff tested positive for coronavirus in the week ending on the 16th of January (an increase of 2,749 children and 126 staff on the previous week), school leaders can be forgiven for greeting this morning’s revised guidance with cynicism.

“In general terms, mitigations in schools have now been reduced to hand washing, opening windows and wearing masks where appropriate. And, despite trade union requests for reinstated contact tracing, any efforts to manage the potential spread of transmission across school communities has disappeared in all but name, to the extent that even the channels for seeking advice around multiple cases (clusters) has gone, with school leaders being left to complete a form in order to report concerns to EA.

“Whether it is truly the case or not, the perception of many school leaders is that they have now been left to fend for themselves, making very difficult decisions with potentially very serious ramifications based on their own best judgment. This development, along with the continuing staffing crisis, has created a critically difficult context for our school leaders.”