A few months ago, it was snowing and the children ran outside, catching snow in their mouths and doing the stuff that kids do. Suddenly I realised I had not seen them do this for years. For a long time, all we had was kids pulling out their phones and taking pictures. Now they were experiencing things instead of being a spectator.
Like most schools across the UK, we had a policy which was that phones had to be turned off, out of sight, in the bottom of the bag. At the beginning of every term, we would have to remind the students of the expectations and would have to remind teachers to enforce the rule. But we were still seeing phones everywhere.
Planning the ban
Towards the end of the autumn term 2023, I told my governors that I wanted a complete ban on phones on the school site. It received a lukewarm response. They were worried about parents' reactions. Quite a few children come from nearby villages and the governors expressed genuine concerns about safety. We needed a different solution that wasn't a flat out ban. We wanted children to have their phones for the journey to school and the journey home but no access at all during the day.
Keeping children safe
Safeguarding was a major concern. If children are accessing content via 3G we have no control over what they are seeing. Teenagers are seeing and being exposed to inappropriate and distressing material. Even if a child doesn't have their own mobile phone, if they are with someone who does they might see disturbing graphic images.
We wanted to make sure they were safe in school. We also wanted to deal with online bullying so children also felt safe at school. A lot of the anxiety children have is to do with things happening outside of school but these get shared on social media such as WhatsApp and Snapchat.