Schools: Mobile Phones

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

First, it is clearly unacceptable if lessons are being disrupted. That is, in many ways, a broader issue than whether mobile phones are being used and goes to the behaviour policies that every school has a responsibility to have and to develop with their parents. I think it is important that we look at the way in which schools are already taking action to limit mobile phones. Actually, schools are moving towards developing many of the things that the noble Lord has suggested should be in place. This comes back to the point he raised about whether we believe that, with clear national guidance, including examples of how phones should be controlled in schools, we should nevertheless allow a determination at school level by head teachers of how that is actually implemented. I think that the balance is broadly right at the moment, although it is of course important that we keep this under review and that we encourage schools to do what is necessary to enable all classrooms to be purposeful and calm and for every child to be able to learn.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister is right that there is a place, I suppose, for phones in schools in terms of learning. Equally, parents think that, if the child has a phone, they are far better safeguarded, particularly on long journeys home. However, there is the other side, where phones can lead to bullying, to pupils taking inappropriate photographs, to such photos being sent, as well as to well-being and mental health issues. It is not a clear-cut situation we face. It is also disruptive for classes when schools have to ask teachers to collect the phones, hand them out, et cetera. Technology might be the answer. For example, in Ireland they have spent €20 million on giving schools what is called a Yondr wallet, into which the phones go and they cannot be used during that period: it cuts off all the connections. The Minister said we must look at ways: how will we look at those ways and how will we come to a final conclusion?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

There are schools in the UK that are already using the Yondr wallets that the noble Lord refers to. On the whole, schools are not using the approach of making individual teachers collect phones at the beginning of classes. The most recent evidence suggests that the most commonly used way of controlling mobile phones is to collect the phone at the beginning of the day and give it back to the child at the end of the day. The broader point, however, that the noble Lord makes, relates not just to how mobile phones are used in schools but to broader issues of how children are using their phones, with high levels of screen time. Sometimes, we seem to think that what happens in schools solves all problems. Actually, I think we need to look more broadly than simply at a relatively blunt legislative proposal.