The Cabinet Office minister had urged teaching unions and councils to ‘respectfully look again’ and ‘look to [their] responsibilities’ after some opposed the government’s proposal to reopen primary schools in England on June 1.

Asked on BBC’s Andrew Marr Show whether he could ‘guarantee’ teachers will be safe under the plan, Mr Gove said: ‘Yes’.

He later accepted some risk of transmission, adding: ‘The only way ever to ensure that you never catch coronavirus is to stay at home completely. There’s always, always, always in any loosening of these restrictions a risk of people catching the coronavirus.

The minister appeared to defend his guarantee on a common-sense understanding of what it means to be ‘safe’, adding that his stance followed discussions with the chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance.

He added: ‘The key thing is that we can make these workplaces safe. You can never eliminate risk, but as we know, it is the case that it is extremely unlikely that any school is likely to be the source of a Covid outbreak and if, for any reason, there are risks we can take steps to mitigate them.”

‘We can’t have a situation where we keep our economy, our schools and our public services continually closed down, because the health consequences of doing so would be malign as well.

‘None of us can guarantee that anyone will be entirely free (from risk) unless effectively they are perpetually imprisoned in their own home.’

The proposals include making children sit at separate desks in classes of no more than 15 at a time, as well as staggered breaks and arrival times.

Some schools have drawn up their own additional measures in an attempt to minimise the virus’ spread.

Metro.co.uk today revealed how a primary in Northumberland was planning to assign pupils individual ‘play bubbles’ marked by hula hoops on the ground before appearing to retract the suggestion after a social media backlash.

Kids returning to school in France and other European countries have faced similar restrictions on play.

A Labour shadow minister called on the government to publish the evidence behind the proposal to reopen schools.

Rachel Reeves told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: ‘The government have got a lot more work to do to give that confidence that it will be safe to send children back in two weeks’ time.

‘The government have got two weeks to get this right. They haven’t approached this in the right way so far.’

The British Medical Association repeated concerns from teachers’ unions who demanded more answers after meetings with scientific advisers and ministers on Friday, while Liverpool and Hartlepool are considering refusing to reopen schools on June 1.

Mr Gove, a former education secretary, said: ‘I respectfully ask them to think again, to broaden the range of the scientific advice that they look at.

‘I know the BMA has the best interests of its members at heart, but actually the clear scientific and clinical advice is that it is safe to have schools reopen accompanied by social distancing.

‘Children only have one chance at education. Over the past decade we have made significant strides in closing the gap between the richest and poorest in our schools. This lockdown has put that backwards.

‘If you really care about children, you will want them to be in school, you will want them to be learning, you will want them to have opportunities. Look to your responsibilities.’

The Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has suggested schools should reopen at different stages depending on the virus’ transmission rate in different parts of the country.