Calvin Robinson

Schools have a responsibility to maintain political neutrality. The Education Act (1996) states that governors and head teachers have a duty to secure balanced treatment of political ideas. The Teachers’ Standards says ‘teachers uphold public trust in the profession and maintain high standards of ethics and behaviour, within and outside school, by ensuring that personal beliefs are not expressed in ways which exploit pupils’ vulnerability or might lead them to break the law.’ Why, then, have schools been getting away with teaching highly contested political ideas as if they are accepted facts?

Has anyone who is recommending the use of masks in schools ever spent any significant amount of time working with young people? It seems unlikely. Children simply will not wear their masks correctly, if at all. Girls will constantly be adjusting them; boys will be flicking them across the room and pulling each others’ elastic bands. They’ll all be pulling them down to their necks at break time, resulting in pieces of food and drink being spilt inside. That, and the fact that they’ll be wearing them around their necks, mirroring the behaviour of adults they see on public transport, further trapping bacteria. If anything, face masks will be detrimental to the health of young people.