A group of schools in London have announced they will go smartphone-free, in a sign of the growing public concern over phone-based childhoods.
Headteachers at 17 of the 20 state secondary schools in Southwark, south London, have taken the collective action to shift their pupils away from smartphones, in the hope of also addressing the downsides of their use outside the school gates.
The other three state schools in the borough are working towards introducing the policy.
The schools will also help families and pupils to understand the well-documented downsides of smartphones and social media use among young people. These include mental health concerns, screen time addiction, the impact on sleep and attention spans, access to inappropriate and graphic content and increased risk of thefts and muggings.
“We were prompted to collaborate after seeing first-hand the negative impact of smartphones and social media on our children’s wellbeing and education,” said Mike Baxter, headteacher of the City of London academy.
“While the issues that we had to address typically occurred outside of school hours, it was often in school that these negative behaviours were exposed,” he added.
The schools have agreed that if any phone is used by a pupil during the school day, it will be confiscated. If the phone is a traditional mobile phone – without access to wifi – it will be returned relatively quickly. If the phone is a smartphone, however, it will not be returned for up to a week – or until parents collect it themselves.
The measures will impact more than 13,000 young people in one of the highest performing boroughs in London. All secondary schools will impose the policy for children from years 7 to 9. A number of schools in the group, however, are adopting a “whole-school” approach.
The group of secondary headteachers are also in contact with the leaders of primary headteachers in the borough, in the hope of establishing a borough-wide approach.
“Creating this positive change for the wellbeing and success of young people in Southwark is at the centre of this collective drive,” said Baxter. “Children are getting smartphones as young as four. We could make a massive difference if every parent in this borough knows what every school says about smartphones.”
Jessica West, headteacher of Ark Walworth academy, said the schools had to take action after phone companies failed to do so. “Many requests for stronger measures have been made of ‘big tech’ companies but action is woefully slow and that leaves our children at risk,” she said. “We are therefore acting in collaboration to support families and children in making healthy choices – we take our responsibilities to children seriously.”
A recent House of Commons education committee report found that extended screen time had become increasingly normal for young children and teenagers, with a 52% increase in children’s screen time between 2020 and 2022.
According to the report, nearly 25% of children and young people use their smartphones in a way that is consistent with a behavioural addiction.
The collaboration was greeted with delight by Daisy Greenwell, co-founder of Smartphone Free Childhood (SFC).
“This move from the headteachers in south London is fantastically powerful and pioneering – never have secondary schools clubbed together to take collective action on this issue before,” she said. “We know that the younger a child gets their first smartphone, the higher their incidence of mental illness later on, so this has the potential to change the lives of a generation of children in south London.
“School leaders have the ability to effect change in their schools immediately and to shape social norms in their communities,” she added.
The concern about smartphones and children has rocketed. There are now SFC groups in the US, UAE, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and Portugal.
In the UK, there has been an increase in parents joining together to make “pacts” not to give their children smartphones until 14 years at least. In Bristol, 80 schools have started SFC groups and more than 1,000 parents taken pacts.
“We are so excited about how this is snowballing organically amongst schools, headteachers and parents, it was clearly a conversation that was waiting to happen,” said Greenwell.
