The Phone Ban That Already Happened
The row about banning phones in schools carries on as if it were still to be decided. In England, 90 per cent of secondaries and almost every primary already stop phones during the day. The research on what changed afterwards is stranger than either side of the argument would like.
The argument about phones in schools is still going, in Parliament and in the class WhatsApp group. In England, though, it has mostly already been settled. A Children's Commissioner survey covering around 19,000 schools found that 90 per cent of secondaries and 99.8 per cent of primaries already stop pupils using their phones during the school day.
The ban happened. School by school, without a national law, while the debate carried on above it.
The government issued guidance in February 2024 telling schools to stop phone use during the day, and MPs have argued since about whether to put it into law. Both things can be true at once: the policy is popular, and it is largely already in place.
Which means we now have something more useful than opinion. We have a few years of evidence about what changed afterwards, and some of it is not what either side was expecting.
The strict schools worked, in the narrow sense. Their pupils used phones about 40 minutes less during the school day, and spent roughly half an hour less on social media.
Then the researchers looked at the things parents actually worry about: wellbeing, anxiety, low mood, sleep, exercise, English and maths results, behaviour in lessons. On every measure, the two sets of schools came out the same.
Here is the part that tends to get dropped when the study is quoted. Across all 1,227 pupils, the ones on their phones and social media most did have worse sleep, less exercise, lower marks and poorer mental health. The link is real. The school policy just barely dented total daily use, which was running at four to six hours.
None of which makes a phone-free classroom pointless. It makes it smaller than the claims being made for it. A rule that removes phones from lessons is doing a real job in that hour, in that room. It was never going to be the thing that fixes a child's sleep.
A secondary school of around 1,040 pupils spends about 102 hours a week managing phones if it has a strict policy. That is roughly three full-time members of staff doing nothing else.
Schools with looser rules spend 108 hours. Slightly more, not less. Confiscating takes time, but so does logging incidents, arguing about them, ringing parents and hearing the appeal the next morning.
Whichever way a school goes, it is not saving anyone time. Those hours come out of something, and usually it is the pastoral conversations and lunchtime clubs that sit around the edges of the timetable.
Sara Abrahamsson, an economist, studied more than 400 Norwegian middle schools that brought in bans at different times, following the same children through the change using health and school records rather than questionnaires. Girls' visits to the GP for psychological symptoms fell by about 29 per cent. Bullying went down for boys and girls. Girls' grades improved and more of them went on to an academic track afterwards. The largest gains belonged to girls from the poorest homes.
The Dutch have their own version. National guidance took phones out of classrooms in January 2024, and an evaluation for the government later asked around 300 secondary heads what they had seen. Three quarters said pupils were concentrating better. Nearly two thirds said the atmosphere in school had improved. That is what heads noticed rather than what was measured, so hold it loosely, but it is a lot of people describing the same thing.
So why the mismatch with England? Look at what each study compared. Norway compared before and after a real change: phones everywhere, then phones nowhere. The English study compared no phones all day with phones at break and lunch. Nobody in it was in a free-for-all. Even the relaxed schools kept phones out of lessons.
Put together, the studies say something fairly sensible. Getting phones out of lessons helps. Going the extra step, from break-time phones to no phones anywhere on site, buys much less than we hoped it would.
A school day is six and a half hours, nearly all of it lessons. The policy we keep arguing about reaches a thin slice of a child's phone life, and not the slice doing the damage.
That is the uncomfortable part. The school ban was the bit of this problem that could be handed to somebody else. It has now been handed over, in almost every school in the country, and the numbers on children's sleep and mood have barely shifted.
If there is a practical takeaway, it is an unglamorous one. The hours that count are the ones after tea, and the only people with any say over them live in the house. That is a worse deal than a school policy, because it means the arguing is ours to do, every evening, with somebody we love.
Which leaves the evening. No policy covers it, and there is nobody on the door to collect anything in. The next time the phone debate flares up, notice how much of it happens inside a building where the phones are already in a box.
The ban happened. School by school, without a national law, while the debate carried on above it.
The government issued guidance in February 2024 telling schools to stop phone use during the day, and MPs have argued since about whether to put it into law. Both things can be true at once: the policy is popular, and it is largely already in place.
Which means we now have something more useful than opinion. We have a few years of evidence about what changed afterwards, and some of it is not what either side was expecting.
What happened in English schools
Researchers at the University of Birmingham surveyed 1,227 pupils aged 12 to 15 across 30 secondary schools. Twenty of those schools kept phones away all day. Ten allowed them at break and lunch.The strict schools worked, in the narrow sense. Their pupils used phones about 40 minutes less during the school day, and spent roughly half an hour less on social media.
Then the researchers looked at the things parents actually worry about: wellbeing, anxiety, low mood, sleep, exercise, English and maths results, behaviour in lessons. On every measure, the two sets of schools came out the same.
Here is the part that tends to get dropped when the study is quoted. Across all 1,227 pupils, the ones on their phones and social media most did have worse sleep, less exercise, lower marks and poorer mental health. The link is real. The school policy just barely dented total daily use, which was running at four to six hours.
None of which makes a phone-free classroom pointless. It makes it smaller than the claims being made for it. A rule that removes phones from lessons is doing a real job in that hour, in that room. It was never going to be the thing that fixes a child's sleep.
Three members of staff, every week
In February this year the same team published something quieter, in BMJ Mental Health. They costed the policing.A secondary school of around 1,040 pupils spends about 102 hours a week managing phones if it has a strict policy. That is roughly three full-time members of staff doing nothing else.
Schools with looser rules spend 108 hours. Slightly more, not less. Confiscating takes time, but so does logging incidents, arguing about them, ringing parents and hearing the appeal the next morning.
Whichever way a school goes, it is not saving anyone time. Those hours come out of something, and usually it is the pastoral conversations and lunchtime clubs that sit around the edges of the timetable.
Why Norway got a different answer
If bans did nothing at all, somebody should tell Norway.Sara Abrahamsson, an economist, studied more than 400 Norwegian middle schools that brought in bans at different times, following the same children through the change using health and school records rather than questionnaires. Girls' visits to the GP for psychological symptoms fell by about 29 per cent. Bullying went down for boys and girls. Girls' grades improved and more of them went on to an academic track afterwards. The largest gains belonged to girls from the poorest homes.
The Dutch have their own version. National guidance took phones out of classrooms in January 2024, and an evaluation for the government later asked around 300 secondary heads what they had seen. Three quarters said pupils were concentrating better. Nearly two thirds said the atmosphere in school had improved. That is what heads noticed rather than what was measured, so hold it loosely, but it is a lot of people describing the same thing.
So why the mismatch with England? Look at what each study compared. Norway compared before and after a real change: phones everywhere, then phones nowhere. The English study compared no phones all day with phones at break and lunch. Nobody in it was in a free-for-all. Even the relaxed schools kept phones out of lessons.
Put together, the studies say something fairly sensible. Getting phones out of lessons helps. Going the extra step, from break-time phones to no phones anywhere on site, buys much less than we hoped it would.
The four hours after the gate
Ofcom's 2025 figures show smartphone ownership jumping from 56 per cent of ten-year-olds to 83 per cent of eleven-year-olds. Starting secondary school is when the phone arrives. By 13 and 14, children are online about four hours a day, and that is before you count gaming.A school day is six and a half hours, nearly all of it lessons. The policy we keep arguing about reaches a thin slice of a child's phone life, and not the slice doing the damage.
That is the uncomfortable part. The school ban was the bit of this problem that could be handed to somebody else. It has now been handed over, in almost every school in the country, and the numbers on children's sleep and mood have barely shifted.
If there is a practical takeaway, it is an unglamorous one. The hours that count are the ones after tea, and the only people with any say over them live in the house. That is a worse deal than a school policy, because it means the arguing is ours to do, every evening, with somebody we love.
Which leaves the evening. No policy covers it, and there is nobody on the door to collect anything in. The next time the phone debate flares up, notice how much of it happens inside a building where the phones are already in a box.
Sources & Further Reading