THE FULL reopening of schools in England is set to be delayed again as heads spend the first week testing pupils for Covid.

All secondary kids must be swabbed twice on returning next month.

The mammoth task is expected to take up the first week of term — meaning millions of kids will miss yet more days of school.

Many schools are not expected to start lessons until the second week.

Geoff Barton, head of the ASCL headteachers’ union, said: “If you have nine million children going back, having been mixing through the summer, you can see the need to test them on site.

“We thought we could focus on the norm of education and already we have the spectre of disruption. Parents may feel rightly frustrated.”

The lockdowns led to millions of pupils spending months out of class, struggling with Zoom lessons from their bedrooms.

Experts warned the lost learning will create a ­crisis for an entire education of children — entrenching inequality.

But Department for Education (DfE) insiders denied kids will lose out with more chaos when they return next term.

They said schools can reopen the week before term starts to begin testing.

And a DfE spokesman said: “Settings may commence testing three working days before the start of term and can stagger the return of pupils across the first week.”

Meanwhile, new Covid cases and hospital admissions rose yesterday.

Infections were up 13 per cent on the previous Sunday, at 32,253.

Forty nine people died within 28 days of a positive test compared to 61 last week.

And 69,270 first jabs and 192,060 second were administered.

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