A leading girls’ school is to become the latest London secondary to go “smartphone free” in a bid to boost achievement and reduce the threat of online harm.
Walthamstow School for Girls plans to implement the changes in September next year – with phones found to breach the new rules being confiscated for up to eight weeks.
Parents of Year 6 primary school girls about to apply for places at the over-subscribed state secondary have been warned of the forthcoming smartphone-free policy at open evenings.
Helen Marriott, headteacher at Walthamstow School for Girls, said the aim was to address an increase in “harmful online behaviour” by students and create a “more compassionate school community”.
She told The Standard: “We think the smartphone-free school initiative will have a positive impact by making students less reliant on their phones, more focused on learning and less apt to view the online world as a more attractive alternative.
“We believe it will improve students’ mental health and wellbeing: the seven- to eight-hour window when they travel to and from school and are in the building will be an opportunity to ‘switch off’ from the online world and focus on the real one.”
Earlier this week, the Princess of Wales warned of the dangers of screentime for children and an “epidemic of disconnection”.
Prince William has revealed that he and Kate are “very strict” in not allowing their children - Prince George, 12, Princess Charlotte, 10, and Prince Louis, seven – to have mobile phones.
Pupils at Walthamstow School for Girls are currently allowed to bring smartphones to school but these have to be handed in to the school office at the start of the day, and collected at the end of the day.
Students found with a mobile phone in their possession during the school day have it confiscated and not returned for 48 hours.
Under the new rules, students will be allowed to bring a “brick” phone – a device without access to the internet – to school but this will have to be turned off and kept in their school bag during lessons.
If the “brick” phone goes off, it will be confiscated for 48 hours and only returned to the child’s parents.
Ms Marriott said that while it was rare to see a student using a phone in school, not all students handed them in to reception, and some were found during bag searches.
“We know that smartphones are designed to be addictive and so if students’ phones are switched on, they will be aware of notifications and will therefore become distracted from learning,” she said.
“We have also seen an increasing trend in harmful online behaviour through social media and WhatsApp groups.
“Some students seem to feel they can be abusive or be ‘bystanders’ in this arena in a way that they wouldn’t do in ‘real’ life.
“One of our school values is compassion and we see the smartphone-free school initiative as a way of creating a more compassionate school community which is also more focused on learning.”
The school, which has 900 pupils, uses a geographical catchment area to help determine how its places are allocated.
The idea of becoming smartphone-free emerged out of a meeting with other headteachers. School staff then visited Fulham Boys’ school, which introduced a ban last year.
Kelmscott school, a mixed secondary in Walthamstow, is believed to be considering a similar ban, and there is political support on Waltham Forest council for more borough schools to follow suit.
Ms Marriott said that most parents were “on board” with the proposal. The new rules will be explained to students in advance, during the summer term – including advice on which models of “brick” phone are permitted and which are not.
She said: “Once introduced, we would enforce the policy by confiscating phones, if they are found, until the end of that half-term, when they would need to be collected by parents.
“We would conduct random bag searches to ensure that the policy was being consistently followed and would reinforce what staff need to do if they see or hear smartphones.”
She added: “Ultimately, parents and carers have a choice about where to send their children and there are many good schools in the local area.
“If we find we are at an impasse, families can choose to go elsewhere; if they prefer WSFG, the expectation is that they adhere to our new policy.”
Ms Marriott said misuse of smartphones presented a different type of danger to teenage girls.
She said: “The risks to boys have been well-publicised through the Netflix series Adolescence, making clear the dangers of the online world of misogyny, and there is a lot of information linking the use of smartphones with boys’ addiction to pornography.
“The greatest risks for girls are around mental health. Children are bombarded with images which match a beauty standard that few can attain.
“The result has been a significant rise in self-harm, depression and eating disorders, particularly since 2019, perpetuated by the availability of images and websites, and now AI chatbots, that encourage harmful behaviour.
“The selfie culture created by social media, whereby validation must be sought through clicks and comments, means that appearance, rather than character and values, becomes the greatest currency in the lives of many teenagers. That can’t be right.
“Our school motto is ‘Neglect not the gift that is in thee’, meaning that we want all of our students to have the widest range of learning experiences in order to find their superpower, not be limited by an algorithm, or someone else’s vision of who they can be.
“Other risks include the temptation for children to send nudes and semi-nudes, as well as greater risk of coercion and grooming through online forums and messaging.
“Bullying, which we call harmful and abusive behaviour, has always existed in schools. Now it is more likely to be online, so abusive behaviour continues even when the child is at home, meaning that there is no chance of escape.
“You can never eliminate risk but you can mitigate it. We think that our smartphone free school policy will help to mitigate the risks detailed above by limiting students’ access to smartphones so that they are free to make healthier choices.
“We think that it will inform and empower parents and students to enable children to be children, as well as preparing them to be the best version of themselves.
“Removing smartphones enables us to shine an even brighter spotlight on learning in its broadest sense, for all our students.”
