Boris’s mask debacle is doing a disservice to teachers

The latest U-turn – this time on face masks in schools – comes less than a week before hundreds of thousands of teachers, including myself, return to the classroom. But is the announcement that secondary school pupils may have to wear masks as they make their way around schools really a smart idea? I’m not convinced.

The English edict on masks in schools follows previous woolly guidance from Boris Johnson’s government. In place of decisive leadership, we are told that head teachers will have the ‘flexibility’ to introduce masks in their schools. Yet surely either masks work – in which case all schools should use them – or they cause bigger problems than they mitigate – in which case why has the government U-turned? All we can say for sure is that rather than take the lead, the government has once again left the responsibility of the decision over masks to schools and head teachers.