Germany shows Britain how it's done as millions of kids go back for new term wearing facemasks

SCHOOLS in Germany have reopened for the new school year with pupils required to wear masks.

Millions of pupils have been returning to the class room with compulsory face covering, in contrast to the UK.

When schools reopen in Scotland on Tuesday and in the rest of the country in September, masks will not be worn by pupils to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Around half a million pupils have been returned to school in Berlin on Monday, with some in Germany’s 16 states already back in the classroom.

In England, schools minister Nick Gibb said secondary school pupils will not have to wear face coverings in school while the few pupils who've been in school haven't been wearing them.

One secondary school in Cheshire is asking all its older pupils to cover up when they return next month.

But the central government in Germany has been pushing for facemasks to the compulsory in across the whole country.

With each state responsible for education within its borders there has, however, been some confusion about how that will be implemented

Germany’s most populous state North Rhine-Westphalia insists on compulsory masks for its 2.5 million pupils in the whole school site and but during lessons.

Berlin’s plan includes requiring pupils and teachers to wear masks in hallways but not during classes or in the playground.

Sports, music and drama will be allowed but with restrictions such as requiring choir members to keep at least 2 meters from one another.

“There can’t, and never will be 100 per cent certainty,” said Torsten Kuehne, the official in charge of schools in Pankow, Berlin’s most populous district where 45,000 students returned.

Berlin’s minister for education Sandra Scheeres said “it’s not possible in a school” to always keep students 1.5 meters from one another, but that the distance should be kept if feasible.

Students are to be kept in “cohorts” — groups that should not mix — so that if there is an outbreak, only those affected would need to be quarantined.

The northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was the first state to resume classes but shut two schools after virus cases were confirmed.

Fears have been raised that Germany is entering a second coronavirus wave as people get bored with social distancing.

Some parents in Berlin have expressed concern about mask rules in city schools aren’t strict enough.

Marco Fechner, a father of two, said classroom windows don’t open and that the government has stricter mask rules for supermarkets and its own offices than schools.

“This decision is absolutely incomprehensible to me as a father, and I fear for the health of my children and our relatives,” Fechner wrote to the city’s mayor.

The U.N. said this week that as many as 100 countries have yet to announce a date for schools to reopen,

Many around the world will be closely observing the real-life experiment offered in Germany to see what works and what doesn’t. 

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