Masks in schools will backfire on us all

Pro-maskers show little awareness of how children actually behave, both inside and outside the classroom

Lab technicians wear masks properly. Children do not. To make an accurate judgment of how successful masks would be in a school, you need to be aware of how children behave in large groups. I have been working in schools for over 20 years and I know what our children get up to. I love children. That’s why I work with them. But I’m not willing to pretend that they are angels.

Children will swap their masks, ping them, lick them, spit in them and pass them around for fun, shout obscenities through them, bully each other over not having the right type of mask, lose them, wear them incorrectly and, most of all, their masks will encourage them to touch their faces dozens of times throughout the day. They are children, not lab technicians. That’s why we should ask whether masks in schools make children less and not more safe.

The Government’s own safety guidance issued to schools in July said that Public Health England does not recommend using face coverings in school. As pupils will be in their own separate “bubbles” there is no need for them, and the guidance warned that misuse of masks could “inadvertently increase the risk of transmission”. This was wise advice.

Do we really imagine a world where our teenagers turn up every day to school with a freshly washed mask? What about those who rarely wash their uniforms? And those children who come into school hungry every day? Will their parents forget to feed them but remember to give them a fresh mask?

I am also left wondering what these pro-maskers think kids do when they leave the school gates. Do you really imagine they are wearing masks to go home? Or are many of them playing tongue tag in shopping malls instead? Does no one remember what it is to be a teenager?

Have we thought about the impact masks will have on behaviour in schools? Teachers need to be able to see the mouths of their charges in order to hold them to account for chatting, swearing and the like. Mask them up and teachers won’t have a clue who said it.

Bad behaviour increases incrementally and so slowly that it is hard to track the demise of a classroom. Think of the frog who, when you turn the heat up, gradually boils to death. First the chatter increases. With the teacher’s authority undermined, others chat even more. Eventually you have chaos in the classroom. The teacher is unable to teach properly. And that teacher will never get that behaviour back again. It is just how schools and kids work. Culture is everything.

Let’s remember why we are sending children back to school. We want them to catch up on all of their missed schooling. But if bad behaviour is through the roof, no one will be learning anything because teachers will not be able to teach.

What we need is children washing their hands regularly and not wearing masks so that they aren’t encouraged to constantly touch their faces. Masks make us feel better because they are an obvious change to which the Government can point and say, “Look! We are keeping you safe!” Sadly, masks mean we are now far less likely to take handwashing as seriously and this will be tenfold the case with children. Handwashing, social distancing as much as one can and keeping children in bubbles is the way to go in schools.

Let’s not forget: The Office of National Statistics says that only 0.05 per cent of the population currently has the virus. Many studies also demonstrate that children do not pass the virus on to adults. Our Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Jenny Harries has said that car crashes on the way to school are a greater risk to children than Covid.

Children connect with each other and with their teachers through smiles. Schools are built on relationships. Head teachers and senior leadership teams in our schools need to think very carefully before we ban our children from smiling. It is far from obvious that mask wearing in schools will make children safer, and head teachers should not be swayed by how things appear, and rather look seriously at how things really are.