Teachers ask to wear masks in classrooms

[EnemyOfEducationNo1]

And social distancing indoors.
neu.org.uk/january-advice

@RosieLemonade

I don't want my 3 year old being taught by someone in a mask all day. Children need to see faces.

I would have agreed with you last spring. Then young children weren't used to people in masks. It would have been scary if suddenly all the adults were wearing them.

However now the kids are very used to masks. My one year old often has a laugh and a giggle as a cashier chats to them.

@EnemyOfEducationNo1

Isn't it interesting that when I post about prison officers, shopworkers, ambulance staff, all.healthcare staff all wearing masks or even demanding better masks - absolutely no one has a problem. Even lecturers threatening to strike if they go back teaching face to face WITH masks for all AND social distancing AND ventilation - tumbleweed.

Teachers asking to wear masks? To some posters it seems horrendous, selfish, not effective so don't bother, child needs.to see faces etc...

I wonder why classrooms are the only communal crowded indoor space where people actively campaign against safety measures? And i haven't even touched on ventilation and social distancing measi!

Not surprisingly at all most parents worry about their child's emotional well being.

I don't think these posters are right in their object to this but can understand there concern.

Well apart from the masks don't work brigade they are idiots or badly informed

[quote BustopherPonsonbyJones]@CountessFrog
Giving teachers the vaccine earlier would be better, wouldn’t it? If teachers can’t have it before we are asked to return to classrooms, all children and adults in schools should wear masks and be able to distance. I think quite a number of older teachers will refuse to return if conditions are not improved this time.[/quote]
The older and more vulnerable teachers will have been vaccinated by the end of March.

So hopefully that won't be an issue.

There isn't a valid reason the majority of teachers and secondary school children shouldn't wear masks.

We have definitely gone past the stage where anyone should have an issue with that. Most the teenagers don't for a start.

Children and teachers in other countries are wearing masks. Distancing. Blended learning. More space. Investment in ventilation.

Why aren’t our kids and school staff (and parents by default) important enough for such measures?

The same measures required everywhere else indoors in the U.K. too.

In other countries this is in primaries and secondaries. But then other countries perhaps don’t have the militant U4T brigade pushing conspiracy theories under the pretence of giving a monkeys about kids.

Interestingly Germany does have its own version of U4T with similar tactics and surprising influence. Called Fidk.

Personally I think it should be down to personal choice.
I don't see why it should be mandatory in supermarkets but not in the classroom. If a teacher doesn't feel safe then they should be able to wear a mask

"I don't want my 3 year old being taught by someone in a mask all day. Children need to see faces."

The staff at ds's special school wear masks. The children have severe sn and many are cognitively younger than 3. It's not perfect and communication and learning won't be as good but the children cope.

If I were still teaching and my head had been arsey about masks there would have been a short conversation about duty of care etc.

Those 3 words usually bring the daftest into line.

Failing that an even shorter conversation, second word: off.

In Italy, the children wear masks and the teacher doesn't, so that she can speak and be understood. At the beginning of the year we were told it was parental responsibility to take temperature not child each morning

The teachers at my eldest secondary have always been allowed to wear masks in class, as have the children if they want too, according to my ds some did some didn't but it didn't affect the lesson in anyway by those that did ( in his opinion anyway).
Before this term started my youngest primary announced that all staff would wear masks from then on. As it turned out Boris closed the schools before most children went back so I can't comment on any affect to the teaching delivered but I certainly wasn't bothered or concerned that teaching would be done wearing a mask. I did wonder how they'd teach phonics though.
It wouldn't bother me if the pupils were told to wear masks, however I dont think they would be very effective in the younger ones. Not touching masks or swapping with their friend wouldn't come naturally to a 5yo. Long term they'd learn to get used to it but short term, when we need it most, would be pointless

I teach in an Italian primary. Both teachers and students wear masks all day, except when eating or drinking (every child over 6 years). Temps taken at school gate every morning. Testing before return from term breaks. Hand sanitiser dispensers everywhere. Plexiglass in some areas and some classrooms if needed. Social distancing whenever possible and classroom bubbles.

The children have been in school, uninterrupted, since the start of the year. No staff have fallen ill yet. We're not just lucky - we take it very seriously. Schools near us have also had no staff illness, and no spreading in school from the few children who have brought it in.

To be honest, community transmission is so bad in some parts of the UK right now that even all of those measures would not be enough.

I have been thinking about this for a while.

Children (especially younger ones) need school. On the other hand, it does seem unfair that, between half term and Easter, teachers aged 50 and over (or younger and vulnerable) will, in all probability, be some of the most exposed people in the U.K., with the very old vaccinated.

Older teachers (age 50+) should be able to video link their lessons from home with cover teachers supervising the pupils. (This cover could be externally hired in).

Schools should also be made reasonably COVID secure (windows open, mask wearing, bubbles etc), but extreme measures, such as surrounding children in Perspex screens, would not be undertaken, as the risk of those teachers in school catching COVID would not be severe.

There is no perfect solution here, but the DfE needs to be thinking of what schools should look like between half term and Easter end preparing for it now (such as DBS checking lots of young cover supervisors).

World Health Organisation advice is for Teachers and kids aged 6 plus to wear masks so, of course, our Government completed ignores this fact. However I’m clinically vulnerable and so is my husband so there was no way I was going back without a mask.

In September I was the only person wearing a mask in the classroom. A few weeks later when 2/3 of my school shut due to positive cases (including staff) everyone else started wearing them too. I also wear a medical grade masks due to my health condition though I have to pay for it myself.

My own primary age kids wear masks in class too. They do it because they want to protect their vulnerable family members and are happy wearing them. They take them off at break times when they are outside to get masks breaks, drinks etc. Their own teachers were surprised by how quickly they adjusted to it.

@RosieLemonade

I don't want my 3 year old being taught by someone in a mask all day. Children need to see faces.

I work in a nursery. All staff wear masks all day.

Jesus, my two year old will be a lot less traumatised by her nursery workers wearing a mask than her pregnant teacher mother getting ill from being in a tiny Victorian classroom with no ventilation all day.

Sometimes, reading these threads, it feels as though some posters (often the same ones) just don't care if teachers are better protected or not.

Their stubborn insistence that teachers should risk their health is sociopathic.

@Dotinthecity

In our school we've been free to wear masks in the classroom since September. Not a single member of staff did, despite them being freely available. The classrooms are far too small for the staff to keep a 2m distance (or even a 1m distance) from each other or the pupils. Despite this, we've not had a single case of Covid among the staff, pupils or their families. Some of the suggestions being made here are well over the top!

Lucky you! We've had 20 staff ill, some hospitalised, plus children testing positive both with symptoms and asymptomatic. We thought we were doing really well too...

@RosieLemonade you will soon have to choose between childcare with mask or no childcare at all, key worker or not. You need to shift your mindset to the current climate, yours is stuck at this point last year!

All school staff and children should be wearing masks as a condition to return from lockdown. It’s no good just the teacher wearing a mask as she isn’t protected from the children.
Wearing a mask from kindergarten upwards does not affect ability to learn - other successful countries are doing this ie Singapore.

OP Did you miss this important bit from the study you have repeatedly linked to?

Face masks need to be seen as part of ‘policy packages’ with other measures such as social distancing and hand hygiene.

A face mask isn't going to help if teachers are still working in over crowded, unventilated classrooms as they seem to all be on here. No better off, but with the illusion of being protected.

Did you miss the bit in the OP where it said ‘and social distancing indoors’?

[quote bert3400]@BogRollBOGOF they seem to manage in schools around the world. At my sons school they've had to wear masks since September ( we are not in the uk) from the age of 5, all teachers wear mask and visors . Temp checks and hand sanitisers every where....not one case since Sept. UK is so backward with this ...its such an easy thing to implement.[/quote]
At my children's schools and the school i work in, teachers only wear masks when walking in public areas. Teachers do not wear masks in lessons.
My school teachers children 3 to 13 years old. teachers are being sneezed on, coughed on..... I'm not a teacher but i find it terrifying.
my school hasn't had any cases during a term time but teachers have had it in the holidays.
my DD secondary school of 1000 girls has had no cases, they temp test 3 times
a day and have their own testing machine.
my DS secondary schools has about 7!cases last october but after half term they have been fine.

[quote RosieLemonade]**@PurpleFlower1983* @BustopherPonsonbyJones* seeing as we are both key workers I don't think that is very possible.[/quote]
Do you wear a mask at work if in close contact?