Britain’s largest teaching union says there isn’t  currently enough scientific data to make the decision to end mask wearing in schools - but says it hopes masks can be ditched before the end of this academic year.

The NEU teaching union held a press briefing for reporters this morning at which joint-general secretary Kevin Courtney said mask wearing in schools had “gone better than we had feared”.

But he said: “We’re concerned that, so far, we’ve only had masks in classrooms for three weeks in the vast majority of schools…so there’s not very much data yet to be able to see how much transmission there is and therefore to try and work out how much masks are suppressing the transmission.

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“Like anybody, we would want them to not be required as soon as the science says so.”

He added: “We wouldn’t want to say [masks should be worn in schools] for the end of the academic year. We would want them removed as soon as it was safe to do so so…[but] it’s not safe to make the decision right now and say ‘remove the masks’.”