Statutory ban on phones at school is now crucial

Jasmine Norden, The Independent

Two fathers seeking to legally challenge government guidance on phones in schools have gained significant new support, with a teenager and a mother-of-three joining the planned action. Flossie McShea, 17, and Katie Moore, 43, have added their support to Will Orr-Ewing and Pete Montgomery's claim for a judicial review, which seeks to have smartphones completely banned in schools.

Miss McShea, who has joined as a claimant, says she feels the Department for Education (DfE) has failed to protect her and other children from harm inflicted by phones during school hours.

She said using smartphones "completely changed my life from year 7 onwards".

"I was exposed to illicit and violent videos, like beheading videos. I was sent a video of two young children who had found a gun and one of them accidentally shot the other one," Miss McShea said.

"I had to go home. There were a lot of incidents like that and a lot of my friends had the same experiences.

"All of this really happens at school because you can see live reactions. We're all gathered in this place, so people feel it's much more appealing to share this stuff online when you can get a reaction from 30 kids in the classroom.

"I think if I hadn't had a phone, and if we didn't have phones in school, I wouldn't have been exposed to things that I would not want to be exposed to."

Miss McShea's school has brought in a complete ban on smartphones on school premises. "The other day, I got on the school bus and a group of year 7s were laughing and chatting together. I felt so happy for them," she said.

"We never had that because we were just always looking down and scrolling."

Northampton mother Mrs Moore is also joining the claim after her daughter, now 18, told her she had been shown sexually explicit images in school changing rooms on phones.

She said it was "devastating" to hear what her daughter had been exposed to online.

"It's been exhausting as a parent, bringing up a teenager in a world that is so driven around pushing us to technology and being reliant on these technologies," Mrs Moore said.

She added she had tried to delay giving her daughter a smartphone as long as possible, but had felt pressure to give in when all her peers had one.

Mrs Moore believes a complete statutory ban on phones at school is the only solution and said 'out of sight' policies for phone use in schools do not go far enough. Mr Orr-Ewing and Mr Montgomery, both parents of school-age children, wrote to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson in July to say they intended to challenge a mandatory school phone ban not being included in safeguarding guidance for schools.

They are pursuing the judicial review under an organisation they have set up called Generation Alpha CIC. Lawyers will lodge papers in the High Court on Monday. Under the former Conservative government, schools were issued non-statutory guidance intended to stop the use of phones during the school day. A survey by the Children's Commissioner earlier this year found 90 per cent of secondary schools and 99.8 per cent of primary schools already have policies in place to stop the use of phones during the school day.

The majority of secondary schools (79 per cent) surveyed allowed pupils to bring phones in, but said it must stay out of sight and not be used. Only 3.5 per cent said pupils were not allowed to bring phones to school. In July, Mr Montgomery and Mr Orr-Ewing said they had made freedom of information requests to schools about phone and social media-related safeguarding incidents. They found that in one school's case, it had passed on 55 incidents to social services, 17 of which were referred to the police.

Mr Montgomery said getting smartphones out of schools is "a no-brainer".

"It should be the easiest decision in the world for the Government to take," he added. "But they haven't taken it, so we have no other option but to go to court."

A government spokesperson said: "Phones have no place in our schools, and leaders already have the power to ban phones.

"We support headteachers to take the necessary steps to prevent disruption, backed by clear guidance, and have also brought in better protections for children from harmful content through the Online Safety Act."