Parents and teachers welcome school smartphone ban

Parents and head teachers in Yorkshire have welcomed a ban on smartphones in schools.

As of Monday, schools and trusts in England are legally responsible for ensuring they are phone-free throughout the day.

Soban Bashir, a father of three who is a member of the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign, said many schools were already enforcing no-phone rules, adding: "When a teacher is competing for focus, they are not going to compete with a smartphone."

Rachel Garlick, head at Appleton Academy in Bradford, which introduced phone pouches in September 2025, said the effect had been "transformational".

"It's probably the best thing we have done in a number of years," she added.

Garlick said the benefits of banning the use of phones during school included "a lack of distractions, lack of children asking to go to the toilet to check their phones [and] the ability to concentrate on lessons".

Pupils were also more sociable during breaks and lunches, she said.

Garlick said there had been "pretty much no pushback and parents have been very celebratory of it and very supportive".

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Restrictions on phone use follow a government announcement earlier this month on plans to restrict social media for under-16s by spring 2027.

Pupils at Appleton Academy, based in Wyke, are already taking part in a study examining the effect of reduced social media usage.

"It's reduced the amount of out-of-school issues we have had coming into schools," said Garlick.

Bashir, who works in cyber security, said he had stopped his teenage children from using social media.

"Being in cyber security I was always worried about giving a child full access to the internet on a phone anyway because they have got the same access as an adult.

He said the negative effects of social media apps, including reduced focus and arguments disrupting lesson time, "hinder the school day too much".

Dr John Pickavance, who is leading the research examining the effect of reduced social media usage, said there was not currently "robust scientific evidence linking social media to adolescent mental health".

"We have found associations, but to say that it causes mental health problems is quite a strong claim."

Pickavance said it was also difficult to measure the effect of banning phones in schools, despite anecdotal evidence from Garlick.

"That's not to say there are not any beneficial effects, it's just we haven't been able to measure them," he said.

"Parents getting involved in arguments, things spilling over from the night before, how do you measure that? It's not easy scientifically to measure that."

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