Education secretary Gavin Williamson said he wants to see an end to schools finishing “too early” after being questioned by MPs about the length of the school day.

He raised the issue again today, saying there were some schools that currently close “far too early”. But he did not have figures when asked if he knew exactly how many stayed open beyond 3.30pm.

Extending the day had been expected to be a central part of the government’s plans to support pupils’ education recovery from the Covid pandemic but was omitted from an announcement earlier this month.

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Mr Williamson was questioned by MPs about the length of the school day at the Commons Education Committee this morning.

He said: “I think there are some schools that currently close far too early.

“Lots of schools do it brilliantly and we mustn’t forget this…The examples that we pick on are schools that are doing exactly what we want to actually see, where you have got the enrichment, the extra academic time, you have children with the opportunity to play at lunchtime, be with their friends do other activities. So we have so many schools doing it...but we do have, sadly, a number of schools that are finishing early - too early, in my view - and I don’t want to see that continue.”

He said that, historically, there has been very little information published about the length of the school day.

Mr Williamson added: “It’s not something that has been looked at as part of an accountability measure by Ofsted.

“We have been doing, over the past six months, more work looking at this...We are continuing to build up a lot more evidence of the real benefits of the longer school day.

“I feel very concerned when I see secondary schools closing at 2.45pm, sometimes even earlier, sometimes at 3pm. I would like to see secondary schools go a bit further.

“There is another fascinating statistic. On average, secondary schools are open for as long as primary schools but, in the post-16 environment, the average amount of time spent [in school] actually declines and we are the only country in Europe where you see that difference.”

Earlier this month, Mr Williamson criticised schools, when speaking in Parliament, for reducing the length of their lunch break.

The government is currently reviewing the benefit of a longer school day and the findings are set to feed into the next comprehensive spending review.

Extending the school day had been expected to be part of the government’s catch up plans but was not included when the announcement came earlier this month.

The former education recovery commissioner, Sir Kevan Collins, had asked the government to fund a £15 billion catch-up package but the Department for Education announcement set out just £1.4 billion worth of spending for tutoring and supporting teachers, leading to Sir Kevan’s resignation.