Mobile telephones to be banned in colleges in England below authorities plans | EUROtoday

The Government will search to make telephone bans in colleges statutory by introducing an modification within the House of Lords to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

A Department for Education (DfE) spokesperson stated the modification will make present steerage on cell phone bans in colleges statutory.

A spokesperson for the DfE stated: “We have been consistently clear that mobile phones have no place in schools, and the majority already prohibit them.

“This amendment makes existing guidance statutory, giving legal force to what schools are already doing in practice.

“It builds on the steps we’ve already taken to strengthen enforcement, with Ofsted considering schools’ mobile phone policies as part of inspection from this month.

“We will always put children’s interests first, including through this bill – which is widely recognised as the biggest piece of child safeguarding legislation in decades, with critical measures like laws to crack down on profiteering in children’s social care and a new unique identifier to stop children falling through the cracks.”

MPs are to vote on the Government modification on Wednesday.

Skills minister Baroness Smith of Malvern informed the Lords: “We’ve listened to concerns about how we support headteachers in delivering on this policy and we have listened to Parliament.”

On Monday night, friends voted by a Conservative modification to the Bill on cell phones.

They voted by 276 to 169, majority 107, to ban pupils from having smartphones through the faculty day.

Shadow schooling minister Baroness Barran’s proposal features a potential carve-out for sixth formers, medical units and a few boarding faculty settings, and faces additional scrutiny within the Commons, which has beforehand rejected it.

The Education Secretary has beforehand written to headteachers in England to emphasize that colleges must be phone-free all through the varsity day. However, steerage on cell phones has been non-statutory.

Headteachers’ union NAHT expressed its help for the ban to be made statutory.

General secretary Paul Whiteman stated: “Statutory guidance will give school leaders the clarity they need to implement a ban, and will remove any ambiguity or differences between how schools approach smartphone policies.

“Schools will only then need to decide how to implement and enforce a ban across their school community and the Government must provide any support they require to do so effectively.

“Some schools will need time to communicate with parents and pupils on implementation of a complete ban where this is not already in place.”

Teaching union NASUWT has beforehand introduced its help for a statutory faculty telephone ban.

Pepe Di’Iasio, normal secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, stated a statutory ban “doesn’t really change that much” as most colleges have already got bans.

“What would really be helpful is for the Government to make funding available to schools for the safe and secure storage of mobile phones, such as storage lockers or locked pouches,” he added.

“We would also like to see much tougher regulatory action taken to tackle the harm caused by social media and the excessive use of smartphones – which generally happens outside of school time and is clearly having a profound and damaging effect on many young people.”

A Government supply stated: “The repeated attempts by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to kill off some of the most far-reaching child protection legislation is an utterly abhorrent, and a dismal failure of some of the most vulnerable children in our country.

“After more than a decade where children’s social care and the system of child safeguarding was left to rot by these parties in office, and that saw horrific child abuse cases such as those of Arthur Labinjo Hughes, Star Hobson and Sara Sharif, this Government moved quickly to fix what was broken – only to be thwarted at every turn by opposition parties.

“The blocking of measures in this legislation, which includes direct manifesto commitments, such as the introduction of free breakfast clubs and limits to branded school uniform, saving families hundreds of pounds, by unelected Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers is a complete affront to democracy.”

Lady Barran informed the Lords: “The current guidance that the Government has published, which it now proposes to put on a statutory footing, still allows schools to have a so-called ‘not seen, not heard’ policy.”

She added: “There is so much evidence that the presence of a smartphone in one’s bag or pocket is a distraction, that the temptation to turn it on when going to the lavatory, when out of sight, when in the playground, is almost irresistible. Indeed, it happens to adults too.

“So, given that that is the case, putting flawed guidance on a statutory footing achieves nothing.”