Every morning on my way to Sevenoaks station, I pass streams of children waiting at the bus stop. Too often they are heads down. Side by side. Silent. Small faces illuminated with the blueish light from their phones.
Phones and the world of social media were meant to be a great connecting force, and yet, they seem to be isolating our children. Those young people at the bus stop that I pass everyday are no longer chatting, or taking in their immediate surroundings, instead they are sucked into the orbit of their phone – and all the danger that entails.
It is increasingly impossible to deny the huge damage that social media and smart phones are having on not only our children, but their childhoods too. We must do more to protect children in their early years while their brains are forming.
This is why, as the Government’s ‘Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill’ passes through Parliament, as Shadow Education Secretary I have tabled an amendment that would ban smartphones in schools for under-16s. Classrooms should be a place of learning, not mindless scrolling on TikTok underneath the desk.
Of course, it can often be worse than scrolling. Phones offer children a portal to anything and everything the internet has to offer, including online pornography. In recent years we have seen a very alarming rise in the number of children being pressured by peers to send explicit pictures of themselves.
When we were in government, we published very strong guidance for schools to ask them to remove phones from the school day. We were always clear that we wanted to monitor how schools responded to this guidance before we went further, and that we would legislate at the earliest opportunity, if schools continued to raise this as an issue.
Evidence suggests that only 11% of schools are genuinely smartphone-free, and children at smartphone-free schools get GCSE results 1-2 grades higher than their counterparts. Polling from Parentkind last week said that 1 in 5 children say lessons are disturbed by smartphone use ‘everyday.’ That will have huge ramifications on our children’s futures. It is obvious, from listening to parents and professionals in schools, that we must now go further and legislate to ban phones in schools.
Regrettably, instead of working with us constructively on this, Labour continue to play politics with the issue. They have repeatedly refused to put politics aside and back our amendment. In fact, the Education Secretary called our proposal a ‘gimmick.’ She is wrong. Parents, teachers and children are crying out for government to do more to protect them.
Earlier this year, I visited the Ashcroft Technology Academy in Putney where they don’t allow their pupils to even bring phones to school. This academy is thriving under the brilliant leadership of Douglas Mitchell and the dedicated teachers there. I visited the school to listen to children talk about how the banning of phones in schools has transformed their education.
I expected at least one child to rally in defence of their phone, but I was met with a rush of excitement from all the pupils gathered about their experience. One boy turned to me and said it made him feel ‘safe.’ He can come and go from school with the knowledge that no one is going to target him for his phone as he walks home, as everyone knows the pupils of Ashcroft Academy are phoneless. If the Government don’t want to listen to us they should listen to children, like that boy, who just want to feel safe.
The frustrating thing about this issue is that to so many readers, it will seem such an obvious solution. I do believe we will look back in years to come and wonder why on earth we didn’t collectively act sooner to protect children in schools. The evidence is now overwhelming; phones are disrupting education, and worsening educational outcomes. More than that, we must look closely at the harms social media are having on our children. In a society where children are feeling more lonely and anxious, this will go some way to ensuring our children can enjoy their surroundings and upbringing in a safe way.
There is still time to get this right. I want to work constructively with the Government to ensure children are protected in schools, and that’s why I’ve put down a very reasonable amendment to achieve these ends. I hope the Government will be bold enough and brave enough to work with me in return.
Laura Trott is the Shadow Education Secretary.