‘Mask wearing should be a family decision’

ENTRY Principals and parents react to new guidelines on face covering in primary schools

The Department of Education has revised a controversial instruction issued to schools last week, which directed that children in third class and up should be refused entry to primary schools if they decline to wear a mask without medical reason.

In fresh guidance sent yesterday (Monday) morning, the department told schools that "it is not intended that any child will be excluded from a school in the first instance".

It sparked a divisive debate among parents some of whom were firm on their stance that children should be forced to wear masks.

The principal of a primary school in Wilkinstown said last week that he would not be sending students home who arrived into the classroom without a mask.

James Minnock, Principal of Scoil Naomh Barra National School in Wilkinstown says there has been good compliance with the new recommended measures but believes the move should have been from the start a case of parental consent rather than a directive.

“We've had no issues, I just forwarded on whatever literature we got from the CMO and from the department and there was practically full compliance with no complaints or issues,” he said.

“I just had one parent who was querying it and I made it clear that I certainly wouldn't be sending any child home if they weren't wearing one.

“Some of it to me doesn't make an awful lot of sense obviously when they are eating their lunch they can take them off, in a normal busy classroom, that's when the children tend to chat to each other.

"I think there is a contradiction there that it doesn't make an awful lot of practical sense because that's the time that it will spread.

“I made a decision early on anyway that we wouldn't be sending children home and we wouldn't be questioning them or disciplining them. I felt from the start that it should have been a parental choice and I do think they would get a huge compliance even if they just left it up to parents that the vast majority would follow without having to take a hard line on it.”

Una Curran, a mother to a fifth class student and a mindfullness and well being teacher to children with special needs believes it should be down to each individual family to decide. She added:

“To send an email at 8.20pm on a Tuesday night to principals to say that you have to implement this the next morning I think was very unfair.”

Sixty to 70 percent of all of us are very visual learners and an audiologist has said how the face mask distorts sound and even blocks the high speech frequencies and that's where your key information is. If you are a child who is struggling to learn anyway, it's another barrier to learning as well.

“For some children, the masks nearly gives them a way to hide behind, so if they are anxious and quiet and don't want to speak, they are going to hide behind their own mask even more.”