THE restricted use of mobile phones in schools was debated by the House of Lords last week. The “issue should be straightforward”, the global campaigner and crossbench peer Baroness Kidron said in her introduction. The devices risk detracting from the main educational purposes of “learning, building relationships, personal development and acquiring skills such as sports, debating, and drama”, she said.
Research from the think tank Policy Exchange this year, she said, had “found that schools with an effective ban on smartphones were more than twice as likely to be rated outstanding by Ofsted”. It was “not simply about learning; [but] about building a respectful and communicative school community”, Baroness Kidron said. There were also health implications around eyesight, speech and language development, disturbed sleep patterns, and increased rates of anxiety.
In spite of new legislative moves in Australia, she did not think that mobile phones should be banned completely in schools. Some pupils needed them for health and well-being reasons, and some to support their learning difficulties. Also, some children were carers, or were vulnerable, and required immediate phone access. “Each of these is acknowledged in the government guidance, and each should form part of phone restriction policies in schools.”
The Bishop of Oxford, Dr Steven Croft, set out how his diocese is helping to educate more than 60,000 children, through a network of 285 church schools and multi-academy trusts. He spoke of “a broad consensus on the importance of this issue and in favour of smartphone-free schools. However, there is not yet a final consensus on the next steps to be taken to bring this about.”
Speaking from recent experience, he said, one of the schools he had visited had enforced a ban on phones which had “translated into better behaviour overall, less bullying, and higher levels of concentration, which are in turn translating into more learning, better relationships, healthier communities, and higher attainment.”
A head teacher in another school had told him about the impact that phones now have on parents, from basic communication challenges to extensive WhatsApp message traffic, and poor levels of comprehension. “Addictive technology needs communities of resistance to be formed by schools and parents,” Dr Croft said. “The mental health and attention span of our children and the whole of our society are at stake.”
Lord Chartres, a former Bishop of London, introduced a biblical note: “Speaking on this subject after the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, is rather like Ruth gleaning after a combine harvester. I agree with absolutely everything she said in her masterful summary of the subject.”
His interest was in “people who have just left our schools”, and he quoted from the Office for National Statistics. “We are told that this year there are 872,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 24 not in work, employment, or training. We are also told that a large part of that has to do with technologies, and the sort of dangers and pressures described.”
He referred to it as “wake-up time for public authorities and parents to regain our courage after a period in which there has been a great deal of hesitancy about positively teaching and reinforcing healthful ways of life as established truths, rather than as merely interesting topics for classroom discussion. There is a crisis of authority involved in what we have been discussing.”
Although, he said, “we cannot uninvent social media; we must learn how to live with it fruitfully.” He ended his remarks with a note of caution from the inquest into the death of the 14-year-old schoolgirl Molly Russell: “She ended her life while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online contact.”
Responding for the Government at the end of the two-hour session, Baroness Anderson referred to it as “an education”, and thanked Lord Chartres for raising “the issue of addictive technology”, and with others for having “emphasised the role of young people’s voices in this debate, and the fact that they are not heard”.
The Take Note motion was approved.