Masks all day in school

How many teenagers are going to wear the masks properly? How many will have a clean one every time they take it off? I'm gonna guess at a very small minority. Is it going to make them touch their faces more? Almost definitely.

Will it protect the teachers? No, probably not.

Should op lie down and accept something she doesn't agree with? Definitely not.

I really wish this was a case at my dc's school. Even young children are wearing them all day in other countries, why can't secondary children?

It's not recommended though is it?

I don’t think the list of what is and isn’t recommended in schools in England is driven by science, rather finance and politics. Heads will be the best placed to make this observation.

Unfortunately the government has decided to wash its hands of all responsibility for making difficult decisions and has said heads, not scientists, should be the ones to decide what is appropriate for their setting.

Better to say he hasn’t been in school for six months which is true and avoids the rebuttles. Still frustrating though, especially with the low provision you detail.

On masks I thought it corridor etc only but up to HT. I’m not sure what the DfE document says but should be there.

But see how it goes. If he's the only one not wearing one for non medical reasons then he may feel self conscious too with classmates, teachers. In year 11 he's more than old enough to assess this and may be embarrassed if his parent intervenes.

I'll be surprised if more schools don't introduce this. It's becoming very clear that individual schools will be blamed if there's an outbreak, or even worse, a death attributed to a case caught in school. You don't know if there are teachers or students in the extremely clinically vulnerable group and the SLT have a duty of care to them too. In the absence of clear advice from government it's understandable if schools do their own risk assessments and decide that masks are necessary in trying to make schools safer for everyone.

I don’t think it is necessary to wear a mask all day

That’s an opinion though, not a clear fact.

I’m fully aware that they will say tough luck he will have to wear one

At the end of they day, they can’t.

But as it’s the rules, he should.

I really wish that parents wouldn’t use their unhappiness at lockdown provision (which has been massively varied due to the lack of guidelines or standards) as a reason to be unsupportive in the return to school. We really need to work together and find a way forward through this mess because there are no clear answers and the head will be juggling the needs of vulnerable staff and pupils with the wants of other stakeholders.

[quote ihearttc]@itsgettingweird
Ok, it’s 6 months since he has been in school. 6 months since he has had any actual input from a teacher. 6 months since he has learnt anything new. 6 months since he has been taught anything that he hasn’t taught himself.
They have received no zoom lessons and no face to face teaching at all apart from 1 hour “meeting” with their form tutor to check they were still alive (yes their exact words).
I work in a school, I’m aware of the guidance. My issue is that other schools have chosen to wear masks in corridors only as per the guidance. I’m been in school throughout with no social distancing and no mask wearing.[/quote]
Some schools were better than others but I assume your son did independent study and conciliation using things like BBC bitesize?

But right now you're complaining they were shit during lockdown and now complaining they want to take highest levels possible to prevent locking down again.

What do you want?

(And I work in schools)

What is the problem?

I'd personally send an email to the head saying that your personal view is that it's unnecessary and that you'd be happy with a return without masks, just with increased handwashing or whatever, and what will be the threshold/criteria for a removal of this rule? He won't care actually what your personal view is but if all those not keen remain silent, they'll assume everyone's thrilled with it.

In reality I'd give it 2 weeks until the whole idea is binned. What's going to happen when people turn up without? Make them fish one out of lost property?

what would happen if I didn’t give permission.

I would hope that the school would reply that it didn’t need parental permission to set and enforce rules.

Sadly the DfE have already undermined them on this.

Not sure why you wouldn’t want to work with your kid’s school in these difficult times though.

Good on the head for trying to avoid this in his / her school

@ihearttc did you not have reduced class sizes

And, fwiw, I agree completely with Bridecilla. It's much easier to go with maximum measures and compliance to begin with than having to scale up when the shtf.