Legal pressure helps end mask wearing in schools

Freedom at last for schoolchildren as the controversial rules on face masks have finally been dropped. 

Masks have been recommended in schools since pupils returned to the classroom on 8 March. The decision to scrap the advice follows widespread concerns that they hinder children’s learning, communication and health.

Legal pressure has also helped to sway the government’s decision. On 23 April, legal action was taken on behalf of a 12 year-old pupil against Tapton School Academy Trust, which runs four secondary schools in the Sheffield area. The court case was lodged by her father, who has remained anonymous alongside his daughter and the school in question, and was taken on by laworfiction, a legal advice website. 

On 5 May, the court ruled that “no child in any school can be forced to wear a mask. No medical exemption is required”. The child, remaining anonymous, gave evidence explaining “like one of my friends said to me ‘I feel as though wearing it is harming me, but I feel like we have to because I don’t want to get told off.’ Those were the words she was using.”

She also explained that: “Teachers take it in turns, some of them seeming to enjoy it, wandering corridors and checking through the windows in classes to make sure everyone’s wearing masks. Three bad-behaviour points and you get excluded. It’s not done quietly but in front of everyone.”

At this stage, however, the court was not required to pass judgment on school policy but made it clear that the child in question would not be required to wear a mask. The court also noted that neither the school nor the government had conducted a full risk assessment on the physical and psychological effects of wearing a face mask throughout the course of the school day, including in classrooms, corridors and on public transport. 

On the 7 May, laworfiction said it was pleased by the good news that masks would no longer be encouraged in classrooms from the 17 May and that this was, in part, due to the pressure the case was able to bring, assisted by donors who helped highlight the harm masks were causing to children’s education. 

In light of the court’s ruling and government’s decision, Stephen Jackson, principal at Jackson Osborne Solicitors, who represented the child, said “While not making assessment of the evidence at this stage, the judge noted that the expert reports ‘certainly appear to be inconsistent with the government’s advisers’ views as reflected in the guidance issued by the government.’ This is right and indicates that the judge would expect the advisers’ views on the harms to have been obtained and to be reflected in the guidance. The outrage occurring, however, is that the government has chosen not to ask its advisers on SAGE what harm the masks may cause, and SAGE has chosen to be silent on the issue, citing the excuse that it is not in their remit.”

This was not the only legal challenge the government faced on the issue of masks in schools. Campaign group UsForThem penned an open letter to the Prime Minister, first ministers of the four nations and secretaries of state for education calling for them to discontinue the use of face masks in school settings, for both children and adults. The group claimed that “masks should play no part in the life of healthy children.”