Embarrassing U-turn from the Education Secretary as children will now be forced to wear masks in schools

In what has been a chaotic year for most, schoolchildren are now being caught up in the madness following a controversial 24-hour U-turn from the Education Secretary.

CHILDREN will now be ordered to wear masks at school, which are due to start next week, as Gavin Williamson backtracks on his previous decision, following new World Health Organisation guidance stating over-12s should wear masks.

Pupils will have to wear masks in communal areas of schools such as hallways — but not classrooms, and only by England’s secondary school children in areas experiencing high cases of Covid-19 outbreaks.

This latest announcement comes 24 hours after No 10 ruled out masks being made compulsory and has left some Tories branding this another mess-up by the “department of mess-ups.”

The decision may also have been made in the hopes of appeasing hardline unions to agree to the return of schools next week after months of battles with union reps over their insistence that children should wear masks in schools.

We will wait to see if this decision is changed again by Gavin Williamson tomorrow, but as it stands, millions of children will now be made to wear protective masks when schools return.

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