“They don’t want to wear them,they don’t find them comfortable,they can’t read their friends’ faces,” he said. “We think it’s going to upset the children and limit their interaction more than any benefit it brings.”
Twin sisters Maya and Noa Sandler won’t be wearing masks when they go back to school,their father David says.Louise Kennerley
However,Tiara Relativo’s children,aged eight and five,have been wearing masks throughout lockdown,particularly in crowded areas,and will continue to do so. “At the beginning it didn’t always stay on,it would stay on for longer and longer each time,” she said.
“They’re pretty good about keeping it on now. I think it’s a really nice way of showing people around you that you care about them. A mask is just like a hat. You drill into kids,‘put your hat on’,and they get used to it.”
When school resumes,masks will be compulsory for teachers and high school students,and strongly recommended for those in primary school,unless eating or exercising. Face coverings in schools are common overseas,but they’re new to Sydney.
As on every issue involving COVID-19,there’s a spectrum of views. Some parents and students think it’s too much to ask of children and teens,given adults will no longer have to wear their masks in offices from 80 per cent community vaccination.
Tiara Relativo from Winston Hills with her children Madeleine and Harrison. She wants them to wear masks when they return to school.James Brickwood
Like Mr Sandler,they also think masks are uncomfortable,too hot – especially in the playground – and make teachers’ facial expressions difficult to read. That concern prompted the NSW Department of Education to issue so-called lip-reading masks,with a square of see-through plastic in the middle. Teachers,however,say they become too foggy to use.
Some families are worried about sending their children back to school at all,and consider masks a key plank in a series of safety measures – on top of ventilation and separating different cohorts of students – to limit the transmission of COVID-19 in a mostly unvaccinated and therefore vulnerable group.
NSW Department of Education guidelines,published late on Friday,said masks would be one of the factors NSW Health considers when determining the seriousness of a COVID-19 exposure on a school site.
The guidelines say if they are deemed a close contact. They are aimed at narrowing the circumstances in which a school must close following a COVID-19 case.
Overseas,masks on children are commonplace. The United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Health Organisation recommend them for those aged six and older. The United States’ CDC suggests them for children as young as two.
Victoria has mandated them for children in year 3 and above when its schools return. A French study found that while they are inconvenient – heat is a particular complaint – children adapt better than their parents anticipate.
Professor Fiona Russell,child and adolescent health specialist,said primary-aged children were the least likely to end up in hospital,and less likely to transmit COVID-19 than older people,but masks provided another barrier to transmission.
“It’s all about maximising things for this year until we get our[vaccination] coverage up much higher,and try as much as we can to reduce infections in schools so they don’t have to close,and more broadly protect the wider community,” she said.
“In saying that,next year will probably look very different. I would hope kids would by and large be able to go back to school as normal[in 2022].” Vaccines for children under 12 are also being developed,and could be available within months.
Logistics will also be a challenge. Cloth masks will inevitably be lost by primary school students,who struggle to hold on to hats and jumpers,and disposable ones may create litter problems (some schools have bought litter sticks so teachers don’t have to pick them up with their hands).
Compliance may also be an issue in high schools. Colin Axup,the president of the Victorian Association of Secondary School Principals,experienced this last year during a period of mandatory masks when schools resumed after the state’s second wave.
“If you equate wearing a mask to wearing a uniform for a student,sometimes that can be a challenge,” he said. “Some people don’t know how to wear masks full stop,and there were no more challenges of getting them to wear a mask than getting them to wear their uniform properly.”
Kristine Housewell,Principal of Blackwell Public School in St Clair,said teachers had been getting students used to teachers’ in masks over Zoom. “They’ve been showing,‘this is what I’m going to look like,this is my mask,this is my favourite’,” she said.
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