Primary children told to wear masks in classroom

Ministers urged to clarify the rules, as some schools reject official guidance that masks are not necessary

‘Masks are a restriction on our ability to teach. It puts a psychological barrier between staff and children’

PRIMARY schools are telling children to wear masks in the classroom, The Daily Telegraph has learnt, while a secondary headmaster became the first to break ranks and defy Government guidance that enforces the face coverings.

Ministers have been told to “urgently” clarify that masks were not only “unnecessary” for young children but could cause potential harms.

The Prime Minister announced on Monday that secondary school students should wear masks in the classroom when they return if it was not possible for them to keep two metres apart.

Official guidance from the Department for Education (DFE) states that children in primary schools do not need to wear masks. But primary head teachers have already started to write to parents this week telling them that children would need to use face coverings when they return on March 8.

It came as David Perks, principal at East London Science School, became the first secondary headmaster to publicly defy the Government’s advice on face masks in classrooms while accusing ministers of “pandering to the unions”.

He told The Telegraph: “To put a restriction on our ability to teach children just does not add up.

“It puts a psychological and physical barrier between staff and children that is just destructive.”

He said that students would be left to decide whether they wished to wear a mask in the classroom, but that the school would not enforce it.

Parents at Selsdon Primary school in Croydon, south London, have been told that children as young as five should wear a face mask at all times apart from during sports lessons or when eating or drinking.

Susan Papas, the school’s executive head teacher, said these measures had already been introduced for key workers’ children who were coming to school during lockdown, adding it had been “very successful”.

Parents at Nascot Wood Junior School in Watford, Herts, were told children would need to wear a “well-fitted” face mask while in the classroom if there was not space to socially distance.

Molly Kingsley, co-founder of the parent campaign group Usforthem, said ministers must “urgently” clarify the position on face masks in schools.

“We suspect these two schools won’t be isolated examples,” she said.