Scores of teachers with “catastrophic” long Covid plan to launch a group legal challenge against the government, claiming pandemic policy failures led to them being infected at work.

But a top barrister representing medics in a similar case warned it would be difficult for teachers to prove they caught coronavirus in the classroom.

Long Covid Educators for Justice (LCEJ) wants compensation from the Department for Education for those who “lost their health, income and employment” after working on the frontline during the pandemic.

It is not known how many teachers have long Covid.

But research published in the Occupational & Environmental Medicine journal in March last year found those working in teaching and education and social care “showed the highest likelihood of having long Covid symptoms”.