Face Mask Requirement in Secondary Schools Expected to End on May 17th
After being urged not to “pander” to the pro-mask teaching unions, the Prime Minister is expected to stick to his plan to end the face mask requirement in secondary school classes when the next step of the Government’s “roadmap” out of lockdown comes into force. Mask-wearing will, however, continue to be encouraged in school corridors. The Telegraph has the story.
The Prime Minister will confirm that the Government guidance is changing from May 17th, when England moves into stage three of the reopening roadmap, according to multiple senior Whitehall sources.
Officials at the Department for Education are already drafting the new guidance, which will drop the recommendation that English secondary school pupils should wear face masks in class, while still encouraging their use in corridors.
Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, told the Telegraph that the success of the vaccine rollout and the current low level of Covid cases in schools had paved the way for the move.
“As infection rates continue to decline and our vaccination programme rolls out successfully, we plan to remove the requirement for face coverings in the classroom at step three of the roadmap,” he said.
However, on Thursday night education trade unions – which have been pushing to keep masks in classrooms into the summer – threatened to defy the change.
Kevin Courtney, the Joint General Secretary of the National Education Union, said he would stick by teachers who still wanted pupils to wear masks, adding the coverings remained in place as a “precautionary measure”.
The Government guidance is only advisory rather than backed by law, meaning teachers will retain some autonomy about what to do in the classroom.
Meanwhile across the rest of society, rules on mask wearing are expected to stay in place even past the “end” of lockdown in June.
The Telegraph report is worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I’m so glad I’m ‘exempt’ from wearing a mask, LOL!
As is anyone who so chooses, of course!
Amazing isn’t it? I don’t even say exempt anymore. I don’t answer and continue on my way or I say no. But the fools wearing their masks.. some of them question the madness, the hoax.. but alas most of our fellow men and women are unthinking idiots. This has been a revelation to me. The greens made gains in the local elections.. they will also be compliant for the coming climate change lockdowns.
There is no evidence to support mask wearing at all outside of controlled medical environments (and even then it’s debatable) and certainly none in schools.
This mask wearing fad has become a secular Niqab. A sign of alleged virtue, not science.
The latest fad is to keep your young children in masks outdoors while you show your face. I realized today that these young parents are vaccinated. Sick.
Only if we let it. Never worn a mask/face covering, never will. Many of my pupils have long ago spotted the rubbish about masks in the classroom, and unchallenged by me, haven’t been bothering wearing one in my classroom. Their communication with each other and with me has improved and more importantly (but of no surprise to anyone here) have not had an inkling of COVID.
Good for you, do any of the other staff support your position or is it all done in secret ?
I can’t see how that could be kept a secret.
Little to no proof face masks do anything to stop the spread. Lots of evidence to the contrary that face masks are damaging in numerous ways both to physical and mental health and hinder education. I see children wearing them outside, one teenage girl almost got run over yesterday desperately trying to keep her distance from me she stepped into busy road.
What are parents and teachers instilling in our children other than fear. Not convinced about teachers but the unions have a lot to answer for. I tell my daughter’s off for wearing theirs. Am I a bad parent?
You’re a good parent.
All parents should raise their children to ask the question, why? Rather than just accepting everything they’re told. Heaven only knows the schools arent going to do it. We are going to need more critical thinkers if we’re ever going to emerge from this debacle intact.
My son was 11 when a teacher was teaching the class about the solar system. Matt has Aspergers & the solar system was one of his obsessions, so he knew something she’d said was wrong. He politely put up his hand and told her so. Her response was to tell him he was wrong, she was the teacher & not to challenge her again. He was also kept in after school, & bullied by 2 teachers. Luckily this was in the final weeks of primary school. He went to an independent secondary which cost us a fortune but was worth every penny. Matt is 25 this month. So teachers have been intolerant of free thinking pupils for a long time, even when it comes to literal facts.
You can never have absolute ‘proof’ either way. That isn’t how it works. What you do have is evidence, and the basic principle that unless there is a real probability of efficacy and low level of harm, you don’t use a treatment. No such probability exists.
I ‘down thumbed’ you because I can’t see where DJH stated there is ‘absolute proof’ so couldn’t really see the point of your post.
‘Proof’ is an absolute construct.
The point I am making is about precision of language – no big deal, but important when discussing basic scientific method. It is a significant distinction in a time where there is so much sloppy science around.
I wouldnt hold your breath now the elections are over!
Besides, if they’re not requured in schools it backs up the argument they’re not required anywhere and they’re not going to allow that to happen.
By stopping the requirement in school they would have to admit there is no asymptomatic spread which would render muzzle wearing pointless when they can ask the symptomatic to stay home.
Perhaps the Department of Education will now stop harassing London headmaster David Perks for saying that he would not insist that children wear face coverings inside the classroom.
Thinking he was speaking common sense he had hoped other head teachers might follow his lead.
Instead the Board of Governors placed Mr Perks ‘under investigation’.
He was put under immemse pressure by the DoE who also contacted the school to ask it to clarify its policy on face masks.
Attached, Daily Telegraph yesterday.
Sadly, his problem was that he spoke about it. Son’s head teacher at work has the same opinions behind closed doors, several staff don’t wear masks and pupils without masks go unchallenged. The numbers of maskless are steadily growing, and the fear in some pupils of the unmasked is lifting. No fuss made, and no one has challenged it. ⁸
How very Soviet of them. Have they built our gulags yet?
So schoolchildren will not be required to wear masks in class through to the summer holidays but will be required to be vaccinated upon their return in September.
Where is the logic in that ?
Check this short video for what parents should be doing in THIS country to keep their children safe from the criminal UK regime:
https://cdn.lbryplayer.xyz/api/v4/streams/free/school-no-masks-ya-sacked/a655c8ff68d1da52b26655c41ff79aebf357d367/7b4432
Camilla Turner’s piece in the DT is enlightening. Teachers are leaving the unions because they don’t believe in the face mask demands and were not consulted over the policy. Also Boris did not ask SAGE if masks in schools were required. Conclusion; Boris just caved into the unions for purely political reasons. Why do the unions push policies not supported by their members? And why does Boris wimp out of opposing such policies?
Unions haven’t been unions since they genuflected to the idea that strikes can only happen within a legal framework. That’s a long time. Ever since they’ve been elitist lobby groups and pressure valves on working class discontent.
The unions in this country are really trade guilds rather than true unions.
Joint Secretary Courtney added that masks were an important “psychological reminder” for teenagers that “there is still something to be concerned about”
So they finally admit it’s nothing to do with health and all about behaviour management. A socialist union looking to manage behaviour? Really.
And this is what it has ALWAYS been about. My MP admitted this much when I questioned him last summer when they brought the mask mandates in. He said it was about “making others feel safe when out” ??? Its stressor tool and a social conditioning tool, designed to split society into the terrified and the self-righteous, and mark out the dissidents. Take away the mask and the virus goes too.
It’s not a ‘socialist’ union – it’s a bunch of wankers following Tory policy if we want to be politically accurate.
You are either a collaborating sheep or a sceptic (normal).
Nothing to do with right,left,leave or remain.
Left wing wankers.
I was going to write a whole lot, but actually, f&ck masks covers it all.
Those teachers and trade unions pushing for children to remain masked should be charged with child abuse
That’s a given. Will it ever happen? Will the guilty parties in this dark and sinister period in human history ever face the music? Doubtful: the whole of the COVID ‘experience‘ has been littered with criminal activity perpetrated by the establishment from top to bottom, from Child abuse, abuse of human rights, false imprisonment, cruelty, and abuse of the elderly and so many more heinous crimes, has anyone in authority who has been guilty of inflicting these disgusting acts of barbarism ever even had a slapped wrist or been ‘officially‘ questioned? We all know the answer to that question!
I can’t help myself referring to the mind-wiped maskers and Lockdown zealots as the ‘Double Digits’ (IQ) masses. Sorry, that’s just how it seems to me. most zealots and fanatics, not all, would be DD’s. The occasional non-DD’s will have spotted an opportunity in becoming a zealot/fanatic, probably financial. I was discussing (debating?) one or two “Pandemic” issues with a colleague yesterday, (him being a High Risk, vulnerable colleague with various comorbidities) when he posed a most simple question which, strangely I hadn’t previously considered. I wondered whether anyone here had asked or come across the same question, as follows… The Chinese have nationally been wearing ‘safe-masks’ since, oh I don’t know when, but certainly many years before SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) was even a twinkle in Bill’s eye. How then, did this DEADLY PATHOGEN spread so rapidly throughout China, then to the rest of the world, if face knickers are the protection and lifesaving panacea the DD masses are convinced that they are by Mainstream Media and Shiny Brekky Telly people? Personally, I had obviously, like so many others, wondered about their efficacy following their earlier ‘trials’ and the introduction of the legal requirement to muzzle up, alongside Lockdowns in this… Read more »