Should schools ban smartphones? It’s a debate that has been part of education for 25 years or so without much resolution.

In February this year, though, the Department for Education made its position clear by releasing non-statutory guidance recommending the prohibition of phone use during the school day.

For some this was a sensible call that would help curb the damaging impact these devices are having, while others said decisions about phone use should be left to those running schools and the guidance was an example of more government meddling.

Recently, two new reports seem, at least on the surface, to suggest that banning phones is empirically better for students.

Boosting grades, reducing bullying

The first is from the Norwegian School of Economics, where Sara Abrahamsson, a researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, published a report linking smartphone bans with improved grades, better behaviour and improved mental health.

Specifically, she looked at data on student grades and regularity of student consultation with psychologists and GPs, from 477 middle schools in Norway (which teach students aged 13-16) that implemented phone bans.

Given the size of the Norwegian school system, this meant she sampled 36 per cent of school students of this age and, in doing so, uncovered some notable findings.

Her study showed that after a phone ban was enforced, the number of girls requiring specialist medical care was 60 per cent less than before. Bullying reduced by 43 per cent for boys after four years of a ban being in place, and 46 per cent for girls after three years.

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Meanwhile, on the assessment side, the research found that maths was the subject where bans had the most impact for girls, with many seeing an increase in their grade-point average and in their likelihood of attending an academic high school.

Given all these benefits, Abrahamsson tells Tes that she is convinced a phone ban is the right solution for schools: “Banning phones is basically free and leads to better student health and learning outcomes,” she says.

So is this proof that schools should ban smartphones?

For Professor Becky Francis, CEO of the Education Endowment Foundation, the paper “is a welcome addition to the evidence base” but she says we should be “cautious about relying too much on a single study”.

She adds: “When considering any new school or national-level policy, it’s important to build a rich evidence picture, and draw on data and research from several different sources.”

Professor Francis also says there are notable differences between the English and Norwegian school systems, so the results of the research cannot be automatically applied to English settings too.

Dr Christian Bokhove, professor of mathematics education at the University of Southampton, agrees that the study is useful, especially, the outcomes around bullying and achievement that are “moderately positive”, which suggest that smartphone bans could be beneficial.

To ensure validity, though, the research “should be replicated”, to confirm that the findings are not a one-off, he adds.

Another new report

Given the call for more research in this area, it was timely then that in April another new report from the conservative think tank Policy Exchange seemed to show similar findings.

It said students at schools with an effective smartphone ban - ie, banned throughout the day - achieved GCSE results that were 1-2 grades higher than schools without a ban, and the school itself was more likely to receive an “outstanding” Ofsted rating.

For the American psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who has researched the impact of digital technology on young people (most recently in his book The Anxious Generation), its findings were a “gift to educators and policymakers all over the world”, and created a “strong case” for phones to be locked up at the start of each day and left unavailable for students.

The education secretary, Gillian Keegan, was certainly taken with the research, claiming it underlined why the government had “banned mobile phones in schools”, and adding: “I welcome this report from Policy Exchange, further demonstrating why phone bans in classrooms are so important.”

However, while on the surface the findings sound like more ammunition for the pro-ban crowd, the data for these claims is worth picking apart.

While the researchers behind the report asked 800 schools in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland for their phone policies via Freedom of Information requests, only 162 of the 407 to reply were secondary schools in England.

Of the 162, 13 per cent said they had an effective ban, so about 21 schools in total. Similarly low responses were received for the other nations.

Given this, it seems a stretch to say definitively that implementing a ban is directly linked to improved outcomes - a point the report authors acknowledge.

“The findings, while not demonstrating causality, show a clear correlation between an effective phone ban and better school performance, as measured by both Ofsted rating and Progress 8,” they write on page 77.

‘A range of complex factors’

For Seamus Murphy, CEO of the Turner Schools Trust, such acknowledgements are why debates about mobile phones in schools have become too simplistic and politically driven.

“It is well known and well evidenced that in order to understand why certain schools have higher grades, there are a range of complex factors,” he says. This means the causal link between the data in the report makes drawing wholesale conclusions unrealistic, he adds.

Rob McDonough, CEO of East Midlands Education Trust, also questions why the government has come down so squarely on phone bans: “I didn’t fully understand why the secretary of state was wading into this one. It’s much better to leave policy decisions to teachers and governors.”

This is the approach taken by Murphy at Turner Schools, where headteachers have the right to choose if and how phones can be used, with most allowing students to use phones at set times during the day, while one school has an outright ban.

“You need to do what’s right for the community you serve,” Murphy adds. “And whatever position you hold, you need to implement it consistently.”

Delegating to headteachers

Mohsen Ojja, CEO of Anthem Schools Trust, agrees that “a blanket ban on mobile phones may not necessarily enhance the quality of education universally” and so he, too, delegates decisions on phones to headteachers.

“By prioritising high-impact initiatives over one-size-fits-all mandates, we strive to ensure that our efforts yield the greatest returns in terms of educational outcomes for every one of our students.”

It’s not just across schools where leaders are taking different approaches. At Streatham and Clapham High School, the headteacher, Cathy Ellott, says there are different rules for different age groups, with Years 7 to 10 facing a total school-day ban, but with more relaxed rules for older year groups.

“Our Year 11 and sixth form have the social maturity and newly adult brain to be less compelled by the algorithms: they are much more intentional and self-aware about their habits, health and wellbeing,” she says.

As part of this, there is a wide range of teaching on the dangers of excessive phone and social media use, with PSHE lessons on everything from cyberbullying to digital mental wellbeing.

Murphy agrees that this is vital: “Educating children on how to use social media responsibly is one of our main jobs.”

Abrahamsson, though, says that while she understands some of those arguments, her data makes it clear that it is better to do this without phones being present.

“Schools and teachers should, of course, talk and reflect with students about things that are important in young people’s lives, but this can be done without having the phone available,” she says.

The importance of mental wellbeing

Indeed, for other school leaders, her report and the one from Policy Exchange, will likely only harden their belief that phone bans are needed - not just for academic outcomes but for mental health and wellbeing.

“Our general position as a trust is that phones are banned in schools,” says Robert Coles, executive headteacher and director of school improvement at Education South West.

“We want our pupils to interact with each other. We feel our clear stance supports the mental wellbeing of our pupils.”

Rebecca Warren, principal of Mossbourne Community Academy, and Matthew Toothe, principal of Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy, take a similar approach. Since 2004 the Mossbourne Federation has been firmly pro-ban in its stance on mobile phones, which are prohibited from being brought on site and confiscated if they are discovered.

Warren and Toothe argue that the benefits of this are manifold - helping ensure teaching time is not lost to device distractions, ensuring students and staff are safe because they won’t be recorded while at school, and reducing the risk of devices being stolen on the way to and from school. They also say that without phones on site, “the art of conversation is promoted”, which helps to improve pupils’ “articulacy and oracy”.

An alternative after-school routine

But once a student is outside school, their device will be available to them. For this reason, many leaders say banning phones at school is unhelpful because students simply overload on social media once they get home.

One school trying to address this wider issue, by taking the phone ban as far as it can, is All Saints Catholic College in north London, which recently announced that it would be running a 10-week pilot of an optional 11-hour school day, during which phones will be banned entirely.

“The key aspect of the provision is offering children an alternative to going home and just looking at their phones,” the school’s headteacher Andrew O’Neill tells Tes.

“It is about helping to build better habits around homework and then providing them with an opportunity to play and enjoy themselves.”

This may be at the extreme end for some, but it underlines just how broad the approaches are when it comes to considering the role of phones in schools and why, even with new reports emerging and governments issuing guidance, it is unlikely to be a debate resolved any time soon.

Ellen Peirson-Hagger is a senior writer at Tes

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