Headteachers are receiving “threatening letters” from parents who disagree with their children having to wear facemasks in school, MPs have been told this morning.
MPs sitting on the Commons Education Select Committee heard that parents were “vigorously challenging” heads over facemask rules that were only guidance and not the law.
Committee member David Johnston OBE, MP for Wantage & Didcot, in Oxfordshire, said: “It was raised with me by some heads this morning that some parents are issuing what they’re calling a ‘notice liability’ about face masks and asking teachers not to have children wear those face masks.
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“The point was made by the heads that - because it’s guidance rather than statutory - when a headteacher decides that, actually, they do need them [face masks] based on the DfE’s guidance, they’re getting quite challenging and, some might say, threatening letters from some parents who disagree with the stance [and are] ordering them to desist.”
He added: “It might be worth the DfE looking at this issue because certainly, some heads are finding the position they’re in quite difficult.”
As schools reopened to all pupils yesterday, the NEU teaching union criticised the government over a lack of commitment to mask wearing in schools, while children’s minister Vicky Ford MP said anxious pupils would not have to wear then.
Committee chair Robert Halfon, MP for Harlow in Essex, asked schools minister Nick Gibb: “What on earth does a headteacher do if he feels that he wants masks?”
He said: “I’ve had the same situation in my own constituency with parents vigorously challenging the heads saying that they don’t have to wear them and that guidance is guidance and it’s not a regulation or a law.”
Mr Gibb said the DfE would support heads “on how they tackle the challenges”.
He said: “All I would say to parents is that it’s very important that we all do all we can to keep Covid out of the classroom.
“That’s what the hygiene’s about, and the ventilation, the one-way system [and] the bubbles. All these are measures that schools have put in place very successfully in order to reduce transmission in schools. And it’s beholden on all of us, including our children, to do everything we can to keep everyone safe and other pupils safe.
“So I would say to parents you should allow your child to wear a mask in the classroom because it protects the other children in the classroom and also actually may well prevent your children from having to self-isolate because somebody near them has tested positive.”
He added: “The guidance is very clear for schools that there is a system of controls that are recommended and schools are expected to put those controls and systems in place to keep their schools secure.”
