Lack of evidence to remove face masks in classrooms after Easter, says National Education Union

Secondary school pupils are being advised to wear face coverings wherever social distancing cannot be maintained, including in class.
Pupils wearing facemasks
PA Wire
Eleanor Busby25 March 2021

The leader of the UK’s largest teaching union has said there is not enough evidence to support removing face masks in classrooms after Easter.

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said face coverings should remain in secondary schools “until the science says that it’s safe to remove them”.

Since there return to the classroom earlier this month, secondary school pupils are being advised to wear face coverings wherever social distancing cannot be maintained, including in class, but the Government has said the measure will be reviewed at Easter.

It's really important that we get every mitigation in place that we can to try and stop cases spreading in schools

Kevin Courtney

Mr Courtney said: “We’re worried that with only two weeks’ data, or two and a bit weeks’ data, it’s not safe to make that decision right now and therefore to say remove them after Easter.”

Earlier this month, MPs heard that school leaders had received “threatening letters” from parents who did not want their children to wear face coverings.

Speaking at a press briefing, Mr Courtney said: “It’s really important that we get every mitigation in place that we can to try and stop cases spreading in schools.

“Ventilation is going to get easier as the weather warms, but we really need to work on ventilation. We would be in favour of continuing mask wearing until it is clear that we don’t need mask wearing.”

Some secondary teachers are telling me that children are being more polite, more diligent and getting on with the work that they're being set

Kevin Courtney

Teachers in England will decide their pupils’ GCSE and A-level grades after this summer’s exams were cancelled.

Addressing the consequences of teacher assessment, Mr Courtney said: “Some secondary teachers are telling me that children are being more polite, more diligent and getting on with the work that they’re being set.

“You know there’s some backwash from the fact that there’s teacher assessment and that tells you something about an exam system as well.

“You shouldn’t be in a place where you can just do it all by cramming at the last minute. That’s not the way real life is. We need to have some places where children do some work during the course of the year and it matters.”

Mr Courtney also called on the Government to advocate “more strongly” for children and parents to take rapid coronavirus tests at home.

Secondary school pupils were asked to take three voluntary Covid-19 tests on site and one at home over the first fortnight. After this initial stage, they will be sent home-testing kits to use twice weekly.

Mr Courtney said: “As a parent, you find out that your asymptomatic child is positive. They were asymptomatic, they weren’t suffering, you find out that they’re positive, then you have to keep them home and you have to stay at home, so it’s not in your direct, immediate interest.

“But if everybody did that then we could control cases much better. We would like to see Government advocating for that use more strongly.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in