By Gavin Mackintosh-
Mixed messages have been sent out to Scottish secondary school pupils, after it was announced today that they will have to wear face coverings in corridors, communal areas and school buses from next Monday.
Although Education Secretary, John Swinney, said the new guidance would apply to all pupils aged over 12, some schools will be exempt from the order. And the guidance will be flexible rather than legally binding, meaning that some schools or pupils will be able to object and refuse to wear the face coverings.It remains to be seen how it would all play out.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon indicated on Monday that a change in the guidance which originally had no requirements for face coverings or social distancing was imminent, adding that the government was in the “final stages” of consulting with councils and teachers.
Eileen Prior, executive director of the parents’ organisation Connect, formerly known as the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, earlier said she hoped schools would be offered some flexibility over how the new guidance was implemented.
She said: “In some schools it won’t be necessary – it depends very much on the environment within a school.
“Some schools are incredibly crowded but some simply aren’t and some are well below capacity, perhaps with wide corridors and they don’t have the issue that we have in many high schools of young people just crowding because they just can’t not crowd.”
Exemptions
Mr Swinney clarified that the new rules were not mandatory, they had the same status as other guidance on reopening of schools, such as physical distancing and hand hygiene measures.
“There will be exemptions from this because the wearing of face coverings is not suitable for all individuals and that has to be respected,” he said.
While the guidance should be considered obligatory across the secondary sector, he said an individual pupil should not be excluded for not wearing a face covering.
He told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “From August 31st young people over the age of 12 in secondary schools should habitually be wearing face coverings when they are moving around schools and corridors and in communal areas where it is difficult to deliver the physical distancing.”
He said the Scottish government had acted in the light of the new WHO advice based on evidence that teenagers can infect others in the same way as adults, but had decided to go further by extending it to school transport.
The flexibility around the new rules means that pupils, many of whom can be very stubborn and fussy, will not strictly be required to abide by the rules.
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