Attendance at school in England will be mandatory from September with a full curriculum and exams expected to take place in summer 2021, the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, has announced.

Williamson added the government would have to take 'specific action' if schools did not comply with the new guidelines and open in September.

England's deputy chief medical adviser, Jenny Harries, said a second wave of the coronavirus epidemic in England was 'quite a possibility' and could not be ruled out, but added that people had 'worked really hard' to get past the first wave