Parents will be asked to test their children for Covid-19 twice a week in Boris Johnson's plan to re-open schools, it has been reported.
Families of secondary school pupils will have to carry out rapid, lateral flow tests at home under plans for a phased return to the classroom, it is claimed.
Next week, officials are thought to be set to meet teaching union leaders to finalise plans for at-home testing, Mirror Online reports.
Schools are expected to re-open from March 8.
But secondary schools will be allowed to stagger the return of year groups to allow staff to test pupils on arrival, according to reports.
According to education sources cited by the Daily Telegraph, school staff will only be expected to administer a single test of all pupils when they return.
It could take some larger schools up to two weeks to get all pupils back to lessons.
It was also reported on Wednesday that face coverings would be made compulsory for secondary school pupils outside of lessons.
The new plan for parents to Covid test their children will raise fears that families will not know how to use the kits properly, meaning results could be unreliable.
In December, the Mirror reported similar tests were "not working well" at detecting Covid-19 in people without symptoms, after a study by Liverpool University found they had correctly detected just 48% of cases.
The Prime Minister is expected to set out his roadmap for ending lockdown, including the reopening of schools, on February 22.
Boris Johnson is awaiting new data on the effects of vaccines on coronavirus after stressing he will take a "cautious and prudent approach" to easing England's restrictions.
He is understood to be expecting updated evidence of the vaccine's effect on hospital admissions and deaths to be with him by the end of Friday, ahead of setting out his "road map" next week.
But it was unclear whether the early data would include vaccines' effect on transmission, with the results of two key Public Health England (PHE) studies possibly not available until next month.
Mr Johnson has stressed that any easing of restrictions needs to be in stages and in an "irreversible" way as he was urged to focus on the evidence rather than deadlines when lifting restrictions.
