Distraction: Why Schools’ Smartphone Policies will hold everyone’s attention this summer and how a new rating system could help.

Blog by Max Haimendorf OBE, Founding Principal of Ark King Solomon Academy

It’s that time of year

For most school leaders, the summer term represents an adrenaline filled stamina test –pulling off the productions, sports days, concerts, fairs, celebrations and transition events that mark the end of the school year. Sitting in the background is a gnawing concern – the list of tasks that need to be completed ahead of the new academic year. While pupils and teachers rightly enjoy a celebratory tone and look forward to a well-earned rest, headteachers try to rattle through this list in the hope it will be small enough by the end of term to enjoy some sort of summer holiday. 

Sitting on this list is the task of ensuring all the school’s policies are up to date ahead of the next academic year. Making sure these policies are appropriate, matched to actual practice, linked to current legislation and guidance, and have the support of pupils, parents and staff is an ongoing challenge. Whilst it’s not perhaps the most stimulating part of school leadership, the process often underpins positive outcomes in the months and years to come.

Which policies need school leaders’ attention right now? Whatever the cycle of review may be on paper, many schools are using this summer term to review their approach to smartphones. Months of political and cultural debate, spurned amongst other things by reading The Anxious Generation and watching Adolescence, have put the topic front and centre. The system is in a state of flux, driven by the risks smartphones pose to children and schools’ and parents’ growing desire for things to be different.

School mobile phone policies have the potential to achieve many things. These policies should create an environment where children are allowed to socialise, learn and thrive without distraction from addictive devices during the school day. On this, it would seem, almost everyone is in agreement.

Last year, headteachers welcomed the governments’ guidance, which encouraged a ‘ban’ of smartphones. The space is evolving, but it remains the case that in many schools, students, teachers and leaders spend too much time thinking about or dealing with the impact of these devices. This is not surprising, as most schools at Secondary level, where the hours children spend on their smartphones grows so extraordinarily, continue to allow pupils to carry their phones in their possession during the school day.

Making smartphones inaccessible during the school day - necessary but not sufficient?

Where is the low-hanging fruit for smartphone policies? Schools across the country are implementing policies that lock away smartphones. In primary schools this is often achieved relatively easily by the school office or class teacher collecting in devices. In Secondary, where schools are larger, phone ownership more prolific, and dismissal logistics more varied, significant investment in systems are required. Schools that have introduced these ‘lock away’ systems report transformational change in the behaviour of pupils. When implemented properly, these policies have the opportunity to give hundreds of pupils a clean 6 hour break from their devices, improving social engagement, learning and behaviour.

But there’s a problem. The negative impacts of smartphones on child development are hard to exaggerate, and they are almost all happening outside of school hours. Access to unsupervised, immediate and unlimited social media, messaging, dark web content and pornography make smartphones wildly inappropriate to be part of children’s lives. Smartphone use is linked to poor mental health, obesity, poor eye-sight, bone development and slower learning. Yet young teens are spending, on average, 28 hours a week on their smartphones. The majority of these are accessing devices without effective parental controls. One in five have usage which can be classed as an addiction. These stark and concerning facts present the contextual backdrop for headteachers around the country grappling with their smartphone policy.

‘Complete Bans’

Through this debate a growing number of schools have opted for a complete ban, meaning no smartphones are allowed on the site at all. Such approaches, to be effective, like anything, require robust implementation. In the London authorities of Barnet, Ealing and Brent, primary schools have agreed to prohibit smartphones on site from September 2025. These policies shoot for a bigger goal to create a new normal for young children – a childhood free from the dangers of smartphones. Policies that lock away phones continue to normalise ownership, whereas the healthiest message, particularly at Primary level, is simply that these devices just aren’t safe. For the almost 150,000 parents who have signed Smartphone Free Childhood’s 14+ delay pledge, this ban supports them in making it normal for their child to enjoy school without the harms of smartphones.

The development of a rating system

Within this context a group of us have come together with the goal of shining a light on this issue. By categorising policies into three simple levels, we believe we can help support schools, inform parents and ultimately help children to thrive. As with any simplification, there will be nuance lost, but on balance, we believe that the ability for schools and parents to readily understand and engage with these levels will have real benefits.

The smartphone ratings are defined as:

• Gold: No smartphones on site (brick or basic phones may be allowed)

• Silver: Smartphones are locked away

• Bronze: Smartphones are never used, but stay with pupil.

We want to recognise the excellent work schools are already doing to protect children from the harms of smartphones. We also want to be clear and accurate about the hierarchy that these policies represent in relation to the big picture and long term impacts these policies will have on children’s wellbeing. Whilst so much better than a ‘do nothing’ approach, policies which leave phones in the child’s pocket will have less positive impact than those that lock them away and completely remove the distraction, and both these policies lack the higher ambition of complete bans – to create a new normal where children do not have unsupervised access to smartphones and social media both inside and outside school until later in adolescence. For this reason, in consultation with a large number of headteachers, we have implemented a simple rating system to support schools and parents to engage with this topic and drive the conversation forward.

The ratings system also allows schools to capture aspects of their policies they are especially proud of, which could include the curriculum taught about the risks of smartphone use in childhood, the robust nature of their implementation, their approach to adults modelling smartphone use, or how they deal with the issues of phones on trips. By capturing these details, we hope schools will be able to share best practice with one another.

Find out more about the rating system here.