Schools with smartphone-free policies have reported significant reductions in safeguarding concerns, suspension rates and staff turnover, with one head describing the changes as “transformational”.
Academy trust or school leaders told Schools Week their policies have contributed to a 50 to 90 per cent reduction in cases relating to things like online bullying and sexual exploitation.
Other schools cited phone bans as one of rates of suspensions and detentions dropping by between 20 to 30 per cent.
Meanwhile, other heads said they have noticed the school environment “feeling more calm and orderly”.
Schools have used a variety of methods to enforce a ban, including only allowing brick phones, putting phones into pouches or locked into boxes, or a ‘see it, hear it, lose it’ policy.
But headteachers are divided over whether a government ban of phones in schools is needed – or whether their policies can influence behaviour for the better outside of the school walls.
As a national debate rages on, Schools Week spoke to leaders to find out how their mobile phone bans were going …
‘It’s been transformational’
“I’ve been a school leader now for the best part of 15 years,” Damian McBeath (pictured right), principal of The John Wallis Academy in Ashford, said, “and this is the thing that I would say has been transformational.”
McBeath (pictured right) introduced magnetic pouches, where pupils must put their phones during school, in January 2024 and has since seen behaviour in classrooms “significantly improve”. For instance, his school has recorded a 40 per cent drop in the number of detentions for disruptive behaviour.
Ormiston Academies Trust, which introduced a trust-wide ban earlier this year, has also seen a reduction in suspension rates. While schools were not able to prove this was a direct consequence of mobile-phone bans, many felt it was a key factror.
Speaking at the Festival of Education, Ormiston chief executive Tom Rees said “the benefits outweigh the risks”, with “children not leaving lessons as much, social time at lunch break improving, more interaction between peers”.
National director of learning at Ormiston, Dr Jenifer Baker, added students are “more engaged in lessons”, with schools feeling “more calm and orderly outside lessons”, too.
Across Lift Trust’s 57 schools, suspensions are down 19 per cent year on year, which a spokesperson said was partially due to a trust-wide ban of phones.
One of the trust’s schools, Winton Academy in Andover, had seven reported behaviour incidents this year, compared to 125 the year before.
Suspension rates at the City of London Academy, which currently uses phone pouches but will introduce a brick phone policy next year, have also dropped by a third.
Safeguarding concerns drop
While phone bans are often implemented to improve behaviour, schools say they have also experienced a dramatic drop in the number of safeguarding cases regarding online safety and social media.
David Smith, who has only allowed brick phones at Fulham Boys School since September, said his safeguarding team estimate a 60 per cent reduction in cases that take place outside of school.
Within his younger years, there has been a 90 per cent drop in safeguarding issues around sexual exploitation.
Ormiston also said it has seen safeguarding concerns cut in half, while The John Wallis Academy has had an 80 per cent reduction in online bullying incidents.
McBeath said this was because students were talking to each other more, and in greater depth.
“The incidents that usually resulted in people being abusive and rude online never start as someone deliberately setting out to hurt someone,” he added.
“They usually started as a chat online, and you couldn’t tell what the other person was saying, whether they were sarcastic.”
Beyond the school walls
Woodfields Academy, in Doncaster, has been trialling a voluntary two-week phone ban, before implementing a full ban, in the next academic year.
Its head David Scales said just one to two students per class handed phones in during the first week. But in the second, around half of each class did.
“Young people want to do this. They want a phone free existence in schools,” Scales said.
Other school leaders said their pupils also use their phone less outside of school.
David Smith, from Fulham Boys, said he has received “so many positive emails from members of the community who have said ‘I sat on the bus, or I’ve been on the tube and I’ve been around your boys and it’s so lovely to see them talking to one another, reading, engaging with the world rather than looking at a screen’”.
A study by The New Britain Project and More in Common found restrictions on smartphone use in schools can reduce pupils overall screen time.
Another “huge” impact has been on staff morale, McBeath added, with staff turnover reducing from 23 to less than 10 per cent in one year after the ban was introduced.
He said teachers felt as if “they can have more authentic conversations with students because they’re not fearful that every single conversation is going to be filmed, recorded, taken out of context, put online.
“It means their relationships have become better with the students. One teacher described the impact as it feels like time has slowed down a little bit.”
What does the research say?
According to research by the children’s commissioner, 90 per cent of secondary schools and nearly all primary schools have policies to stop the use of mobile phones. But few secondaries actually have total bans.
But not all evidence agrees on their impact.
While an LSE study from 2015 found banning mobile phones from schools had the equivalent effect of giving pupils an extra week of education in the academic year, researchers from the University of Birmingham suggested restricting phone use does not improve grades or young people’s mental health.
But research is being conducted at pace, particularly with many countries now implementing nationwide policies.
For instance, a study commissioned by the Netherlands government found bans had improved school learning environments after national guidelines were introduced in January 2024.
In England, government guidance advises schools to ban phones – but is not statutory. But publication of this year’s national behaviour survey, which could give an indication as to the impact of bans, has been delayed.
A government ban?
“Over the last decade or more, we’ve let smartphones run loose without seeking to put appropriate guardrails around it for our children”, Gregor Poynton, MP for Livingston and Chair of the Children’s Online Safety APPG said.
His cross-party group aims to drive policy change to enhance online safety for children and young people, which Poynton said is “one of the biggest problems in this Parliament”.
The MP said schools “clearly have a role to play” in this, as its where “they form relationships and are prepared for the world”.
The Labour government fended off calls for a ban put forward by the Conservatives in an amendment to their school’s bill in March.
Prime Minister Kier Starmer said it was “completely unnecessary”, with headteachers best placed to implement policies.
Certain councils, like Barnet and Enfield, have implemented a ban across dozens of schools in their local authority catchments, but have left it up to schools in how it is enforced.
Rees, from Ormiston, said his trust “recognises the agency of headteachers” in deciding when, and how to implement a phone ban.
Lift Trust has taken a similar approach. “We’ve made it clear our trust-wide position that our schools should be phone-free environments,” a spokesperson said, but “our leaders have autonomy in how they enforce this position based on their local community.”
But other leaders, like Scales in Doncaster said that without a national ban, “we’re saying that headteachers have to shoulder this responsibility to make this change.”
Ninety per cent of students are either below or just above the poverty line at his school. Scales argued without a country-wide rule enforced, a “postcode lottery” would be created.
‘Take the heat off the school’
Smith, from Fulham Boys School, agreed a nationwide ban would help “take the heat off the school” when parents pushback about a ban.
He also thought parents want schools to take a lead on the issue.
“You need the school to make some difficult decisions. If I confiscate a child’s phone, that child is not going to come and see me every day and go on and on at me or punish me – I’m the headteacher, they wouldn’t dare.
“[But] If a parent takes a child’s phone – that child can really make it difficult for that parent.”
However Michael Baxter, from City of London Academy, was more positive about headteachers taking the lead.
“Obviously there are some benefits to government legislation… but at the same time, schools are charged with solving so many of society’s issues. I think part of our job is to do that.
“Anything you’re told to do you’re less likely to do unless you believe – and right now head teachers have got the power to believe that.”
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