Children who are deemed “Gillick competent” can give consent themselves, meaning that permission from parents would not ultimately be necessary for the Covid vaccine. 

Teacher unions warned that the JCVI’s decision not to vaccinate healthy children could lead to further chaos in schools this autumn, if cases rise. 

Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the decision will “make it more difficult during the autumn term and beyond to guard against educational disruption caused by transmission of the virus”. 

Prof John Edmunds, an epidemiologist on the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, said: “We need to take into consideration the wider effect that Covid might have on children and their educational and developmental achievements. 

“Because if you think about it, in the UK now, it’s difficult to say exactly how many children haven’t been infected but it’s probably about half of them, so that’s about six million children. 

“That’s a long way to go if we allow infection just to run through the population, that’s a lot of children who will be infected and that will be a lot of disruption to schools in the coming months.”