Should mobile phones be banned in schools?

[BouncerGuy]

Phones to be banned in schools by law in England under government plans

The government has said it will introduce a legal ban on smartphones in schools in England.

Education minister Baroness Jacqui Smith told the House of Lords on Monday that the government would table an amendment to its landmark Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill "creating a clear legal requirement for schools" on the matter.

The Department for Education (DfE) said the move would give "legal force to what schools are already doing in practice".

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson had written to schools earlier this year encouraging them to follow new guidance that schools be phone-free for the entire day.

The government has said it will put that guidance on a statutory footing, which means schools must pay attention to it.

It argues that this is different from what the Conservatives have been advocating, which is an outright legal ban.

Conservative shadow education secretary Laura Trott said the amendment, which is due to be tabled in the coming days, was "fantastic news for headteachers, parents and pupils across the country".

"For over a year, Labour dismissed this as an unnecessary gimmick, and just last week the education minister claimed the problem had already been solved," she wrote on X.

"I'm glad they've now listened, this is the right step for improving behaviour and raising attainment in our classrooms."

For the government, Baroness Smith told the House of Lords they had taken "not seen, not heard" - meaning phones must be off and in a bag - out of the guidance as an option for schools and were willing to consider "whether we should be stronger on that".

Some schools have chosen to have lockers or magnetically sealed pouches for phones.

The details of the government's amendment have not yet been published.

The Liberal Democrats said ministers must now "ensure all schools have the necessary support and funding to manage this transition".

The party's schools spokesperson Caroline Voaden said they had "delivered a major win for pupils, teachers, and families" by "dragging the government" towards introducing a ban.

For Reform UK, education spokesperson Suella Braverman said phones were "fuelling distraction and undermining discipline" in schools.

She said the existing guidance did not go far enough, and that a "clear, enforceable ban to protect children is the right thing to do".

A Green Party spokesperson said they were "deeply concerned" about the potential harms caused by phones, adding that a "thorough consultation process" would be key to creating "effective solutions" for schools.

The DfE said it had been "consistently clear that mobile phones have no place in schools" and that the majority already prohibit them.

A spokesperson said the amendment "builds on the steps we've already taken to strengthen enforcement".

Schools' mobile phone policies will be monitored as part of Ofsted inspections from April, they added.

"We will always put children's interests first, including through this Bill – which is widely recognised as the biggest piece of child safeguarding legislation in decades."

The Bill had been stuck between the House of Commons and the Lords, after the latter house voted in favour of a Conservative amendment calling for phones to be banned in February.

Earlier this week, the House of Lords accepted shadow education minister Baroness Barran's suggestion that the bill should provide potential exemptions to sixth form students, students in boarding schools, and for those using phones as medical devices.

The head of the Association of School and College Leaders said the legal backing for the guidance "doesn't really change very much" because most schools already enforce their own bans.

"What would really be helpful is for the government to make funding available to schools for the safe and secure storage of mobile phones, such as storage lockers or locked pouches," said the union's general secretary Pepe Di'Iasio.

He also called for "much tougher regulatory action taken to tackle the harm caused by social media and the excessive use of smartphones," which generally happens outside of school time.

Because education is devolved, the approach to phones in schools varies across the UK.

The Scottish government brought in guidance allowing headteachers to implement phone bans in schools in 2024.

In Wales, there is no national ban but heads have the power to ban or restrict the use of devices in their own schools.

And in Northern Ireland, a phone-free pilot scheme in nine schools has just ended, with a report due to be published in June.

Phones to be banned in schools by law in England under government plans

Education minister Jacqui Smith said the move would create "a clear legal requirement for schools".

www.bbc.com

 

[sweep_shot]

I don't think it should be banned.

 

[Rafale Nidhal Fan]

Schools should focus on studying and development of kids. The legal kind of grooming.

Schools aren't taken seriously these days. Schools need to be strict, uniforms, roll calls that will help shape kids in important aspects of their life e.g. discipline, attitude and other important stuff

Tech makes them makes us lazy, no uniforms makes us lazy....anything that links to becoming lazy needs to be scrapped.

I mean there is a reason why previous gen were well behaved, strong and motivated.

 

[aboveandbeyond]

Schools should focus on studying and development of kids. The legal kind of grooming.

Schools aren't taken seriously these days. Schools need to be strict, uniforms, roll calls that will help shape kids in important aspects of their life e.g. discipline, attitude and other important stuff

Tech makes them makes us lazy, no uniforms makes us lazy....anything that links to becoming lazy needs to be scrapped.

I mean there is a reason why previous gen were well behaved, strong and motivated.

Bringing in IPADS has diminished the art of Pen pushing in a way. Which has helped the lazy mentality to enhance.

 

[IAJ]

Here in Norway, pupils must put their phones in a “mobile hotel” in the classroom at the start of the school day. They get them back when they go home. Because of this, mobile phones are not a big problem here.

Children also get iPads quite early. At the same time, schools try to keep a balance. They still use pen and paper together with technology. The idea is to use digital tools when they help, but not to depend on them all the time.

What I really care about, however, is school uniforms. The political party I vote for has supported this idea for many years. Still, I understand that it is hard to introduce uniforms in a society like ours, where personal freedom is very important.

But the situation today creates a lot of pressure on parents. Children compare themselves with other children. Expensive brand clothes have become a status symbol. When parents cannot afford these clothes, children may feel excluded or different. This does not only affect families financially. It also affects children’s mental health and how they feel at school. A more equal system could reduce this pressure and help children focus more on learning instead of clothing.

 

[sithb]

Keep them in lockers. The mobile phones now with their cameras aren't safe. It just takes one tharki boy to click photos of girls doing gym work etc and then morph images.

Mobile phones shouldn't be allowed anywhere near schools.

 

[Major]

Here in Norway, pupils must put their phones in a “mobile hotel” in the classroom at the start of the school day. They get them back when they go home. Because of this, mobile phones are not a big problem here.

Children also get iPads quite early. At the same time, schools try to keep a balance. They still use pen and paper together with technology. The idea is to use digital tools when they help, but not to depend on them all the time.

What I really care about, however, is school uniforms. The political party I vote for has supported this idea for many years. Still, I understand that it is hard to introduce uniforms in a society like ours, where personal freedom is very important.

But the situation today creates a lot of pressure on parents. Children compare themselves with other children. Expensive brand clothes have become a status symbol. When parents cannot afford these clothes, children may feel excluded or different. This does not only affect families financially. It also affects children’s mental health and how they feel at school. A more equal system could reduce this pressure and help children focus more on learning instead of clothing.

Interesting.

I did high school in canada. I never really felt any peer pressure with what i wore. I do remember that having jordans back than made one stand out, but apart from that i also remember kids having duxktape wrapped around on their shoes as a way of fixing it

I have also done schooling in Pakistan, in uniform.

Which is why im against uniform culture as the concept of personal freedom is important and it reflects later on. Because later in kids develop these concepts that people should wear a standard dressing etc, irrespect of the weather conditions.

While in the west, one can even wear shorts to work or school.

 

[Major]

Bringing in IPADS has diminished the art of Pen pushing in a way. Which has helped the lazy mentality to enhance.

Not really.

In canada, all assignments were made on a computer. Even mathematics was also done sometimes on a computer to learn how to make graphs.

This has nothing to do with one being lazy, this is about adopting real life concepts early on.

By working on computer, we learned how to make assignments while placing references at the ages of 13. We knew how to construct a sentence and a paragraph. Knew how to use word, ppt and many other features of a computer. Spellings never mattered due to auto correct.

In Pakistan, hand written notes focused on how neat your hand writing is and whether your spellings were correct or not.

Eventually, by the time pakistani students went to University, you would have 21 year olds not knowing how to use a computer, or not knowing how to type an assignment and further alot of people never knew how to do proper referencing.

By the time these students are in masters doing thesis, they are taking a special course on how to do referencing.

And than in pakistan once you enter the work force, you never have to use a pen or pencil again, as all work is done through a computer. Even govt notifications come from a typed document and not hand written.

Point being, adopting tech over pen pushing doesnt make you lazy. It just makes you not ready for the real world.

 

[Major]

Coming back to this topic.

Because i was a student just in recent years, i took it with alot of displeasure when in uni, a few teachers would come in and would claim that usage of cell phones was banned in their class.

Phones can be used as a medium to educate oneself, and we students have often done so by searching on something. Or needing a reference to some topic in class. Infact, sharing docs between students and faculty was made easier with phones while in class.

Many times we submitted assignments or shared docs in class when a teacher wanted to share an assignment.

What schools need to teach is the ethics of phone usage in school premises. Where content making for tiktok and insta should be prohibited on school campuses.

 

[Suleiman]

No, too many Epsteins out there preying on kids in school, having a phone and access to their parents / police is far too important to give up despite whatever advantages less screen time might have.