Smartphones often get a bad rap in the classroom, and are blamed for everything from distracting pupils from their work to fuelling teenagers’ porn addictions.
But mobile phones also have supporters, who claim the devices can be vital learning tools.
Now, a new poll of nearly 3,500 teachers, parents and school children reveals the extent to which people are divided on the issue.
Exactly half of the 700 teachers and school leaders who took part in the survey - carried out by TES in parallel with similar polls by parenting website Mumsnet and children’s newspaper First News - thought pupils should be banned from bringing their smartphones into school.
The proportion was slightly lower among the schoolchildren (44 per cent) and parents (47 per cent) who responded. Opponents of smartphones in schools say they cause high levels of disruption in class, distract pupils and encourage sexting and cyberbullying. The pressure to have the “best” smartphone makes and models can also create a sense of inequality, they say (see box, below).
Tech in pupils’ pockets
But Peter Twining, professor of the future of education at the Open University, said that rather than banning phones, schools should include them in lessons.
“Schools can’t afford all the [technological] kit they need; it seems bonkers not to take advantage of the fact that young people have this technology in their pockets that they could use for educational purposes,” he said.
Addressing concerns that such a move would discriminate against pupils who don’t own smartphones, Professor Twining said that most secondary school pupils today have phones and they are nearly always smartphones.
Interim findings from his ongoing, research suggest that children from poorer backgrounds are just as likely to have access to mobile devices at home as their more affluent peers.
If anything, he said, the research has shown that middle-class parents are more likely to restrict or supervise children’s access to devices connected to the internet, amid safety concerns.
Last month, safety campaigners warned that cyberbullying often worsens after the start of a new school year, as this coincides with children getting new smartphones. In July, there were calls for schools to educate pupils about the risks of sending sexually explicit texts, after a survey showed that over three-quarters of parents were concerned about sexting.
A major survey by the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference of elite private schools also found this week that two thirds of pupils said using their mobile devices at night had affected their school work.
Bob Harrison, an educational advisor to Toshiba who has advised the Department for Education on the computing curriculum, said smartphones could be useful in the classroom if teachers had “the right skills and capacity and confidence to establish the use of technology into their pedagogy”.
However, teachers can find that phones are a major distraction in classrooms and some pupils agree. Heidi, age 14, speaking to First News, which is aimed at seven- to 14-year-olds, said: “Phones are banned at my school. We’re allowed to take them but they’re confiscated if they are seen or heard.
“I’m glad this ban is in place because everyone is more concentrated on their work and it’s much less distracting in class.”
Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said schools had to set policies that were right for their particular intake and circumstances.
“Often you find that a strong line [against phones] has to be taken, only because a minority of students are engaged in inappropriate behaviour,” he said.
The survey was completed by 1,607 First News readers, 1,057 Mumsnet users in England and 700 teachers and school leaders.
