Scottish school mobile phone ban could be life-changing for children

The Herald Scotland

09-05-2025

Adults, needless to say, behave just the same. Regardless of age, anyone with a phone has effectively shackled themselves to a device as needy as a newborn child: constantly demanding attention, eroding your concentration, destroying your social life and disturbing your sleep.
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It's bad enough when you're an adult, but for children it can be life-changing, for all the wrong reasons. Not surprisingly, teachers have long been complaining about the corrosive effect of mobile phones during lessons, causing continuous interruptions, and ruining everyone's concentration.
In England over 90% of schools already ban phones during class, and for some the result has been transformational. The head teacher of Excelsior Academy in Hackney has been stunned by the change he's seen in the space of a year. With the average grade at A level going from a C to a B, and pupils 'chattier, nicer, more engaged,' he describes the impact as 'a game changer'.
Only recently, however, has the Scottish education system embraced this idea. Scottish Government guidance, published last year, allowed headteachers to decide how to regulate phone use. I'd have thought a mandatory ban would have been more effective, but things seem to be moving in that direction as it is. Moray Council has now instituted a zero phone policy in primary schools (unless required for health reasons), whilst in secondaries they must be switched off and kept out of sight for the duration of the school day.
Going further, two Edinburgh schools are running a pilot scheme aimed at creating phone-free classrooms. Portobello High School - to be followed next week by Queensferry High School – has begun a system in which students lock their phones into magnetic pouches when they arrive. Only at the end of the day can the pouches be unlocked, by a wall-mounted device similar to the contraptions in supermarkets that remove the tags from booze.
Why not simply rely on pupils keeping their phones on silent in their bags? Well, would you trust yourself not to glance at your phone for hours at a time? As the head teacher at Portobello High says, a 'physical barrier' was needed between students and their phones, to remove any temptation.
I can't imagine what it's like being a teacher, let alone a student, in a room where phones are a perpetual source of disturbance. Back in the middle ages, when I was in school, the only distraction was the weirdo in Latin who liked jabbing girls' legs with his geometry compass, or girls passing bitchy notes under their desks. Plus the occasional magazine drooled over by boys at the back - Suzuki and Yamaha catalogues were their favourites. How innocent it all now seems.
Today, the potential for disruption by phones is epidemic, a fact many pupils tacitly acknowledge. Asked what they think of the new policy, several Portobello pupils were enthusiastic, despite admitting it would probably be difficult to adjust initially.
'Muzzling phones allows teachers and students space to focus and think clearly' (Image: free) Yet even if this pilot scheme encounters a few problems, it's safe to predict that it represents the beginning of the end of phones during teaching time in our state schools. This can only be a good thing, and the sooner it becomes universal the better. Muzzling these devices for several hours allows both teachers and students space to focus and think clearly.
But the benefits will go further than improving concentration and academic outcomes, important though that is. The connection between excessive mobile phone use and poor mental health among the young is widely acknowledged. As well as the ceaseless clamour of social media, there is also the danger of coming under the influence of malign individuals and ideas, not to mention the tsunami of hardcore pornography flooding boys' screens. The consequences of such contact and material can do untold damage to self-esteem, or encourage misogyny, aggression and intolerance, all of which are hard to disengage from when young and vulnerable.
By diminishing the power phones wield over youngsters, this ban will also encourage them to interact more among themselves and with others. If, as a result, they grow more socially confident and outgoing, that will be every bit as important as getting better grades.
None of this is to suggest that phones are a bad thing. Teachers know we can't turn back the clock, even if we wanted to. Mobiles are now as essential to our daily existence as electricity and running water, and likely to become more so as they grow increasingly sophisticated and ubiquitous. Indeed, not having a phone these days is like being Amish, living in a prelapsarian world of horse and cart, and cut off from the way the world works.
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Just this week, for instance, when opening a savings account, I discovered how necessary mine was. Instead of being helped by a member of staff in the bank, I was ushered into an empty room and put on a Teams call to one of their colleagues in London.
For the next half hour I had to navigate my banking app and a dodgy wifi connection while managing not to cut the banker off: child's play for a six-year-old, tricky for a luddite like me who uses, and comprehends, about 5% of my phone's capability. Thanks to the banker's patience, everything went smoothly, but how vintage and inept I felt - and I'm told there are some even more clueless than me.
So while phone-free schoolrooms are a great idea, mobiles are now an integral part of our lives. With this in mind, schools must also teach students how to get the best out of them, as well as how to protect themselves from harm. For that lesson alone I'd be prepared to go back into the classroom.
Rosemary Goring is a columnist and author. Her most recent book is Homecoming: The Scottish Years of Mary, Queen of Scots. Its sequel, Exile: The Captive Years of Mary, Queen of Scots, is published in July.