Phone-Free Schools Now

There are some issues in education where the evidence points in many directions and good people can reasonably disagree. The case for allowing mobile phones (and particularly smartphones) in schools is no longer one of them.

We now know enough. More than enough.

Children are receiving smartphones earlier, spending longer online, and entering digital worlds that are purposefully engineered to capture attention, intensify emotion, and reduce self-control. Ofcom has reported that almost all children spend time online, that nine in ten own a mobile phone by the age of 11, and that large numbers of children encounter harms online while still very young. The Government’s own consultation now says that more than 81% of 10 to 12-year-olds use at least one social media app or site, despite most platforms setting a minimum age of 13. 

We must stop pretending that a device of this kind is just a neutral tool that children happen to carry in their pocket.

It is not merely a telephone. It is a portable world of distraction, a delivery system for social pressure, a route into pornography and harassment, a means of bullying, a sleep thief, and for many children a constant low-level assault on attention, self-worth, and peace of mind.

Of course, phones can sometimes be useful. Children can contact home. And some digital tools can support some learning in the right context. Online communities can reduce loneliness for some young people. That is true, and any serious discussion should admit it. But schools exist to make judgements about the balance of good and harm. We do this all the time across a whole range of complex situations. And on this particular question the balance is now very clear. The harms of smartphones in schools significantly outweigh the benefits. 

The Education Committee reached a notably firm conclusion in 2024. It found that the overwhelming weight of evidence suggested that the harms of screen time and social media use significantly outweigh the benefits for young children, and it welcomed a stronger mobile phone ban in schools. It also highlighted evidence that phones and screens disrupt learning and that pupils can take up to 20 minutes to refocus after non-academic digital distraction. That single point alone should stop every school leader in their tracks. Twenty minutes. In a profession where we fight for every minute of attention, why would we willingly allow children to carry distraction machines from lesson to lesson? 

And the issue is not only academic.

The wider evidence base points to links between excessive screen use and sleep disturbance, poorer emotional regulation, reduced physical activity, weaker face-to-face interaction, and a range of social and developmental harms. The increasing evidence base links excessive screen exposure with poorer executive functioning, weaker language development in some contexts, and adverse social-emotional outcomes, especially when use is heavy, unsupervised, or displaces human interaction. 

The evidence continues to mount. A 2025 study in the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities reported that earlier smartphone ownership, especially before age 13, was associated with poorer mental wellbeing in young adulthood, including worse emotional regulation, lower self-worth, and greater detachment from reality, with girls often more severely affected. That study does not settle every scientific debate, and like much research in this field it relies in part on self-report. But it adds to a pattern that is becoming harder and harder to dismiss. 

Now, a sensible person should say this too: not every child with a smartphone is harmed, and not every study finds a simple straight line from screen time to mental illness. Some researchers argue, fairly, that the evidence on direct causation is more mixed than headlines often suggest. We should be intellectually honest about that. But honesty cuts both ways.

Schools are not debating whether phones cause every problem.

Schools are debating whether children should have unrestricted access to them during the school day.

That is a very different question.

And on that question the answer is obvious.

A school is a place for attention, conversation, thought, friendship, reading, writing, play, and intellectual struggle. It is one of the last places in society that can still insist, with moral seriousness, that not every urge should be indulged the moment it arrives. A phone-free school is not anti-technology. It is pro-childhood. It is pro-attention. It is pro-learning. It is pro-relationship. It is pro-safety.

The Department for Education’s updated guidance now states plainly that all schools should be mobile phone-free environments by default, and that anything else should be by exception only. It recommends policies that prohibit phones throughout the school day, including lessons, transitions, breaktimes and lunchtime. It also makes an important practical point: schools can still support safe travel arrangements by storing devices securely during the day rather than requiring them to be left at home. In other words, the false choice between safety and standards has already been answered. 

This matters because many schools still operate with half-measures. Phones allowed but not seen. Phones in bags but switched off. Phones confiscated only when used. These are not serious policies. They create endless arguments, inconsistent enforcement, and a daily culture war between adults trying to teach and children trying not to miss what is happening on a screen.

A truly phone-free school means something much simpler: phones are not part of the school day.

Not in lessons.

Not between lessons.

Not at break.

Not at lunch.

Not peeping out of blazer pockets.

Not buzzing in bags.

Not silently demanding attention while a teacher is speaking.

The school day should belong to the school.

Some will say this is unrealistic. It is not. Thousands of schools already do it. Some will say children need phones because the world has changed. That is exactly why schools must act. When the wider culture becomes more fragmented, more addictive, and more intrusive, the duty of institutions is not to surrender but to provide counterweights. Some will say children must learn to regulate themselves. Certainly. But self-regulation is not taught by saturating children in temptation all day long. It is taught gradually, thoughtfully, and at the right developmental moment.

Adults struggle with these devices. We know this from our own lives. We lose hours to them. We surrender our attention to them. We sleep worse because of them. We reach for them in lifts, in queues, at dinner tables, while watching films, even while talking to people we love. If mature adults with fully developed brains find them hard to resist, it is absurd to imagine that children will simply manage.

Schools should therefore do three things.

First, adopt a complete phone-free policy across the whole school day.

Second, communicate it unapologetically as a way to protect learning, behaviour, wellbeing and culture.

Third, work with parents so that school policy becomes part of a wider effort to delay smartphone dependence, reduce social media exposure, and restore more face-to-face childhood.

There is very good reason that those who are most involved in creating digital technologies ensure their own children live analogue lives. It will take real civic leadership to bring that to the lives of all children.

We know, beyond reasonable doubt, smartphones undermine concentration, damage sleep, fuel bullying, expose children to serious harms, and weaken the social fabric of school life. Should we just allow this to continue? I think not. Indeed, anyone who thinks, thinks not.

With the knowledge of the impact smartphones have on all of us now so very clear, continuing to allow their presence in schools is not a neutral act. It is utter negligence. And dressing this negligence up as modernity isn’t going to wash.

Children need boundaries more than they need bandwidth.

They need conversation more than notifications.

They need play more than scrolling.

They need presence more than perpetual connection.

They need adults who are prepared to say no.

Phone-free schools are not a fad. They are not a moral panic. They are not an overreaction.

They are the minimum serious response to a problem we have tolerated for far too long.

Schools should become entirely phone free.

Not eventually.

Not when government forces them.

Not after another round of consultations.

Now.