Schools are being told to enlist a volunteer workforce made up of sports coaches and scout leaders to keep classes running in the face of a national teachers’ strike.
Guidance published by the Department for Education says head teachers must take "all reasonable steps" to ensure as many pupils as possible attend lessons during the walkout.
Heads should consider merging classes together, dropping the national curriculum for the day and promoting extra-curricular activities to keep the school open, the document says
Schools are told to bring in volunteers who have criminal record checks “from another walk of life” – such as a sports coach or scout group helper – to manage pupil activities.
But the guidance suggests schools can also enlist adults without the relevant checks to beef up the workforce – as long as they are supervised by other staff.
The move comes as teachers across England and Wales prepare to take strike action next week as part of an on-going protest over pay, pensions and workload.
Members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) are due to join council and health workers, firefighters and civil servants as part of the one-day stoppage on Thursday.
More than a million people are expected to take part in what is billed as the biggest single walkout over pay since the coalition came to power.
Unions are planning further action later in the year.
The move threatens to close or partially shut almost every state school – causing parents to find emergency childcare or take the day off work to look after children.
But the 16-page advice note from the DfE says that schools should go to extra lengths to make sure they remain open.
It says there is no legal requirement for schools to teach the national curriculum on strike days and suggests heads should consider pooling staff and bringing pupils together in large groups.
The document gives examples of ways schools have been able to remain open in the past. This includes one that ran an "activity day", with a theatre company brought in to give performances and teach workshops. Another recruited a local football coaching company to lay on sessions for students.
John Dixon, the NUT's head of membership and organising, said: "Our view is that head teachers will clearly make sensible arrangements and will look through any advice they get with a considerable degree of caution because they have a duty and a responsibility to ensure that any children in their care have the appropriate health and safety and environmental surroundings to be in school."
But a DfE spokesman said: "We have given schools advice on what they can do to stay open during a strike. Head teachers know their schools best, and they can arrange cover during strikes from volunteers who have had appropriate checks carried out, should they need to.
"There is no justification for further strikes. The unions asked for talks, we agreed to their request and talks are ongoing. Ministers have also met frequently with the unions and will continue to do so.
"Further strike action will only disrupt parents' lives, hold back children's education and damage the reputation of the profession."