Breaking news: schools have finally been given guidance on stopping kids from using mobile phones during the school day, three years after the government first called for a ban on phones in schools. The guidance is about as groundbreaking as announcing that loudspeakers should be banned in libraries.
Less than 1 per cent of schools currently allow unrestricted phone use, and around two thirds already have rules which mean that teachers should never see students using phones. This is a non-policy for a non-problem, and yet another example of a government with no serious ideas trying to look busy. As I say to my students: activity is not the same as purpose.
Banning phones in school doesn’t go anywhere near far enough in tackling the toxic cycle of addiction and anxiety
The first question is why has it taken the government so long to issue this guidance? Conversations around banning phones in schools started in 2018, when a Department for Education spokesperson said government policy wasn’t necessary because ’95 percent of schools have some sort of restriction already’.
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