Two unions have made a formal complaint to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) claiming a 34-school multi-academy trust failed to provide staff with full details of its Covid-19 risk assessments and left insufficient time to train them on how to manage the return of pupils this week.

Support staff unions Unison and the GMB say the David Ross Education Trust, which runs schools across London, the East Midlands and Yorkshire and Humberside, should have delayed plans to open its primary schools to more pupils this week.

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In a letter to the HSE, the unions say the trust has put the safety of employees and pupils at “serious and imminent risk”.

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The unions have also expressed concerns that the trust failed to inform all its staff at Charnwood College in Loughborough that an employee had been infected with Covid-19.

A David Ross Education Trust spokesperson said: “The safety of our children and our staff always has been, and always will be, our top priority.

“We are confident that the risk assessments we carried out for each of our schools are robust and rigorous, and our primaries that reopened yesterday all did so without any issues, having followed all government guidance.

“We have worked hard to share all information with the unions throughout this process, including details of our approach to reopening, and will continue to seek to engage with them.”