Children are not legally required to wear face masks in schools and should not be sent home if they refuse to wear one, government officials said last night.
This week Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that secondary school pupils will have to wear masks if they cannot maintain social distancing in No10’s ultra-cautious ‘roadmap’ out of England’s third Covid lockdown.
Though masks and regular coronavirus tests are strongly encouraged, officials insisted they are not legal requirements and students should not be ‘denied education’ as a result of non-compliance.
Pupils will also be tested three times at school and once at home for two weeks after schools reopen on March 8, before being asked to test themselves twice a week at home and report the results to their teachers.
But ministers have said both these measures are voluntary, and that students must not be kicked out of the classroom if they refuse to comply.
However, this has not prevented some parents from reacting angrily to the guidance, with ‘hundreds’ gearing up to keep their children at home if children will be forced to cover their faces when they go back to school on March 8.
Children are not legally required to wear face masks in schools and should not be sent home if they refuse to wear one, government officials said last night. Pictured, pupils wearing masks at Moor End Academy in Huddersfield on September 11, 2020
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson told a Downing Street press conference last night: ‘We are also now advising that face coverings should be worn in secondary school classrooms as well as in further and higher education settings unless social distancing can be maintained’
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson told a Downing Street press conference last night: ‘In line with public health guidance, we are also now advising that face coverings should be worn in secondary school classrooms as well as in further and higher education settings unless social distancing can be maintained.
‘Again, this is to help reduce transmission. The risk to children themselves is incredibly low. This is a temporary measure to support the return of schools and will be in place until Easter, when it is reviewed.’
However, Molly Kingsley, the co-founder of UsForThem, said that ‘hundreds’ of parents have contacted the parent campaign group to say they intend to keep their children at home because of the mask mandate.
She told the Telegraph: ‘It’s great that children will be back in school, but it should not be at any price – and certainly not at a price as grave as this.
‘Face masks are an untested intervention and one that many respected academics and doctors have raised serious concerns about from a psychological point of view but also due to the potential physical harm and the long-term effects of face coverings on brain development and educational attainment.’
Guidance from the Department for Education (DfE) says ‘no pupil should be denied education on the grounds that they are not wearing a face covering’.
It also states that the tests are ‘voluntary’, adding: ‘Pupils not undergoing testing should attend school in line with your phased return arrangements.
‘Schools will have discretion on how to test students over that week as they return to the classroom.’
A Government spokesman said it was ‘recommending that secondary school pupils wear face coverings in classrooms as a temporary measure until Easter to provide additional reassurance and protection against the transmission of coronavirus where social distancing measures are not possible’.
Outlining the wearing of masks in schools, the Government’s Spring 2021 Covid-19 response document states: ‘The Government also recommends that the use of face coverings in Higher Education, Further Education and secondary schools is extended for a limited period to all indoor environments – including classrooms – unless 2m social distancing can be maintained.
‘Face coverings are now also recommended in early years and primary schools for staff and adult visitors in situations where social distancing between adults is not possible, for example, when moving around in corridors and communal areas.
‘All children will once again be expected to attend school, as they were in the autumn term.’
Year eight pupils wear face masks as a precaution against the transmission of the novel coronavirus as they chat before collecting their food in the dining room of Moor End Academy in Huddersfield, northern England on September 11, 2020
A teacher wearing a face mask teaches Year 6 pupils in a classroom with other pupils participating by video conference at the College Francais Bilingue De Londres French-English bilingual school in north London on June 2, 2020
It comes as Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty insisted that the threat posed by coronavirus to children is ‘incredibly low’.
Reports at the weekend suggested Prof Whitty was opposing the ‘big bang’ return but he told a Downing Street press conference that he had ‘categorically denied’ the claim.
Setting out why he supports the return to classrooms next month, he said: ‘First thing is, it is absolutely universally accepted that there are huge advantages for children to be at school from a health point of view, mental and physical, as well as from educational and from a life course point of view.
‘Those are overwhelming, they are not in any dispute, everyone accepts that and if you keep children out of school, every single one of the children you keep out of school is disadvantaged.’
He continued: ‘The second point we made at that time which is still the case is the risk to children is incredibly low from going to school and indeed from catching Covid.
‘Covid, one of the few good things about Covid is the risk to children, whilst not zero, nothing in Covid the risks are zero, the risks are so much smaller than they are for adults and others.
‘Therefore we are confident that schools, given the huge benefits of schools, the very small residual risk is strongly in favour, from the child’s point of view, everything is strongly in favour of children, whether primary or secondary, of going to school and the data on that I think are unambiguous.’
