A legal challenge to government guidance on phones in schools has added new claimants and filed High Court papers.

The organisation Generation Alpha CIC is pursuing a judicial review over the government’s decision not to include a mandatory ban on smartphones in schools in its safeguarding guidance.

Generation Alpha CIC was set up by Will Orr-Ewing and Pete Montgomery, who wrote to education secretary Bridget Phillipson in July to notify her of their intended legal challenge.

A teenager and a mother-of-three have now joined Mr Orr-Ewing and Mr Montgomery as claimants, and lawyers lodged papers in the High Court today.

School smartphone bans

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU teaching union, has previously called for a statutory ban on mobile phones in schools to alleviate the pressure on parents, teachers and headteachers.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, also said that his union is likely to support the ban.

Under the previous Conservative government, schools were issued with non-statutory guidance intended to stop the use of phones during the school day.

However, earlier this year the government blocked an attempt by the Conservatives to ban pupils from having mobile phones in school.

Labour MPs defeated a Conservative amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which would have forced headteachers to introduce a policy that stopped the use and carrying of phones by pupils in schools.

Legal action on phones

The new claimants in the legal challenge are Flossie McShea, 17, and Katie Moore, 43.

Ms McShea, from Devon, has joined as a claimant because she feels the DfE has failed to protect her and other children from harm inflicted by phones during the school day.

She told the PA news agency that using smartphones “completely changed my life from Year 7 onwards” and that she still thinks about the content she has been shown.

“I was exposed to pornography and violent videos, like beheading videos, and I was sent a video of two young children who had found a gun and one of them accidentally shot the other one,” Ms McShea said.

“All of this really happens at school because you can see live reactions. We’re all gathered in this place, so people feel it’s much more appealing to share this stuff online when you can get a reaction from 30 kids in the classroom.”

Ms Moore, a parent from Northampton, also joins the claim after her daughter, now 18, told her she had been shown sexually explicit images on phones in school changing rooms, and once had been exposed to a video of men masturbating when another student accessed a video chatroom at school.

Guidance for schools

In a survey for the children’s commissioner earlier this year, 90 per cent of secondary schools and 99.8 per cent of primary schools said they already have policies to stop the use of phones during the school day.

The majority of secondary schools surveyed allowed students to bring phones in but said devices must stay out of sight and not be used, while only 3.5 per cent said students were not allowed to bring phones to school.

A government spokesperson said: “Phones have no place in our schools, and leaders already have the power to ban phones.

“We support headteachers to take the necessary steps to prevent disruption, backed by clear guidance, and have also brought in better protections for children from harmful content through the Online Safety Act.”

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