The Department for Education (DfE) has today called for evidence to find the most effective way of banning mobile phones in schools.
But dozens of teachers and schools leaders have already taken to Twitter to share the secrets of their success with Tes.
And the approaches have similar themes, including consistency of rules, ensuring the backing of senior leaders and getting parental support. However, other teachers argue that phones in schools have benefits and that banning them is a “dead end”.
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A secondary headteacher from Blackpool, Graham Warnock, said: “It was very easy to do. Communicate the rationale to all stakeholders in advance, communicate it again, communicate it some more and make clear the consequences of not following the mobile ban. Be persistent and consistent in follow through every single time. Can be done anywhere.”
An assistant headteacher in a Staffordshire school said: “Explained rationale - why it was important we did this to protect their [pupils] learning etc... Count down to the day, explained the consequences clearly including the consequence for not complying. People said it could never work - it did and continues to.”
One teacher said he used a rack of “phone pockets” on the classroom wall, in which pupils deposited their phones at the start of a lesson, while another said parents had signed a “charter”.
Deb Gostling, deputy headteacher in a London secondary, said: “The key is serious support up to the most senior level for confiscation, and a consistent and challenging approach to the route for getting the phone back, involving parents. Needs to be a clear process in behaviour policy if student refuses to hand over.”
The teachers and leaders were responding to a tweet by the DfE’s behaviour tsar, Tom Bennett, who shares the department’s commitment to a phone ban in schools, and who asked if anyone could tell Tes about “examples of schools that serve challenging cohorts that have successfully implemented a phone ban?”.
Can anyone provide Dave with examples of schools that serve challenging cohorts that have successfully implemented a phone ban? https://t.co/ONIO9cYvaq
- Tom Bennett (@tombennett71) June 16, 2021
However, not all respondents said it was possible.
Trevor Craddock said: “Banning phones outright in schools will fail. It’s a dead end. Better to embrace their massive benefits and educate children to use them appropriately.”
History teacher Lizzie Smith said: “All HW [homework] now on phones - phones quicker than sch WiFi - dyslexic kids using kindle app - I understand the problems but a ban in school won’t stop the worse aspects of phone misuse.”
Meanwhile, schools minister Nick Gibb appeared on GMTV this morning saying he was sending out the message that mobile phones must be banned in the classroom.
He said: “An increasing amount of schools up and down the country are, in fact, banning mobile phones from the school day and we want to find out how they’re doing that in the most effective ways, and then we will revise our guidance to schools based on that evidence.”
