Banning phones from school was bound to provoke a strong response from children, but it is the reaction of a vocal minority of parents that has shocked head teachers.
This has included calling the police and reporting the school to Ofsted for confiscating phones and accusing heads of having blood on their hands if anything happened to a child on the journey home.
Some school leaders are desperate for a national ban on smartphones because they say enforcing it independently is exhausting, takes hundreds of hours and can end in abuse.
The head of a state school in London, who asked to remain anonymous, introduced a ban on smartphones in September last year. If brought into school, they are confiscated for six school weeks.
One parent was so incensed he called the police, which sent officers to the school. They reassured the head that it was a civil matter. The parent also reported the school to Ofsted.
The ban took “huge” amounts of time to introduce. The head said: “It would be so much easier if there were no phones in education. We need a government ban on smartphones. A huge majority of schools don’t feel they have the backing of parents or governors to ban completely.”
Of parents angered by confiscations, he said: “When someone really wants to kick off, they go nuclear.”
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He said the ban was “difficult, particularly with parents of older children who felt they were safer if they could track them. Those with younger children were delighted. We did a lot of work with parents about the danger of phones; we had coffee mornings and afternoons.
“I think parents are more anxious than children and that dictates the mental health crisis. It’s been really freeing not to have phones in schools.” After the ban, 40 phones were confiscated in the first few weeks of September. This year it was four.
Children arrived from primary school already addicted to porn or being bullied on social media, he said. Now pupils no longer asked to use the toilets during lessons, online bullying had fallen and the school had seen a 90 per cent reduction in child sexual exploitation safeguarding incidents.
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The head of a secondary school in the West Midlands, who also asked to remain anonymous, said phones were a “massive problem” and the main cause of problems with mental health, bullying and poor behaviour. “It always comes back to smartphone and social media use,” the head added.
Until last year, phones were confiscated if seen or heard but their presence still had a negative impact, particularly causing internal truancy — children at school but missing lessons.
Now Years 7 and 8 hand in their phones at the start of each day and they are locked away. There were zero incidents of phone use in those two year groups in the previous half term and only one this half term. The age at which the rule applied would rise each year, so this cohort would never have phones in school.
However, the children still “pull them out at the end of the day, walk into moving traffic and there’s the risk of carrying expensive phones”, the head teacher said.
Year 7s next year will only be allowed “brick” or “dumb” phones with no internet access and the restriction will rise with their year group.
On introducing these policies, the head said: “I’m not exaggerating. I’ve spent hundreds of hours on this.” He did considerable work with primary schools, trying to persuade parents not to buy children smartphones before they came to secondary school.
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“I’ve had to spend a lot of my professional time explaining the policies to parents, helping them understand the extent of harm. Implementing it took a long time to get right. Most parents welcome it but the problem is the vocal minority who think smartphones keep their child safe.
“Head teachers really want a national ban, I’m a case in point to show how much time it takes. A ban would stop parents buying smartphones before children start secondary.”
Roberta Harrison, head of Harris Church of England Academy in Rugby, has introduced lockable phone pouches but wants a national ban.
“Before Covid it wasn’t a massive problem but after that we saw issues with group chats, peer pressure, social media and concentration. They would want to go to the toilet to check it. They couldn’t focus.”
Despite wanting to ban them completely, she said: “Pouches are a halfway house. Children travel long distances, so there would be massive parental pushback to a full ban from those who see it as a safety issue going to and from school. Ideally this is a stepping stone until the Department for Education hopefully bans them.”
Parents buy the pouches for £11 and they are locked for the entire school day.
Now children were playing cards at lunchtime, going to clubs, playing outdoors and chatting, Harrison said. Far fewer asked to use the toilet during lessons. The school had seen less bullying, better behaviour and fewer children going home sick. The response from children had been “heartwarming” with less resistance than expected, she added.
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If phones were found outside pouches they are confiscated for 24 hours — children “just don’t want to risk losing their phones”, Harrison says.
Clare Fernyhough, co-founder of Generation Focus, which campaigns for smartphone-free schools, said: “Most head teachers we speak to are very keen to ban phones completely from their schools but often get opposition from a vocal minority of parents who say having a smartphone makes their children safer. One head was told by a parent recently: ‘If anything happens to my boy and he doesn’t have his smartphone, you’ll have blood on your hands.’ There’s no evidence that smartphones make children safer.”
The government said it had no plans to legislate because heads already had the power to ban phones. A spokeswoman added: “We support head teachers to take the necessary steps to prevent disruption, backed by clear guidance.”
