00:00It's a familiar sight, young people glued to their phones, but in more and more UK schools,
00:06smartphones are being switched off, locked away and banned altogether.
00:10I think all phones should be took often because they're playing on the phone, they're not learning, are they?
00:15They are everywhere, I've got one myself, like most of us have.
00:19But yes, certainly in class I suppose it is wrong, but very difficult to enforce, isn't it, I think?
00:28There is a role for accessing the internet for education, but you don't want the kids, you know, going on their social media and it's equivalent to passing notes that we used to do.
00:46My school, where my son goes, they take it off him as soon as he goes to reception, and if they want to phone home, they let them phone home from the office phone, or they phone us if they need us, they don't need a phone in school.
00:57Beckenhead High School Academy has a policy of securing phones in lockers for secondary students and has banned phones completely for junior students.
01:06This policy was implemented after an internal survey revealed concerns about students being contacted online by strangers and exposed to inappropriate content.
01:15There's an awful lot of influence on there for when the young minds are easily influenced, especially if they're on their own, at any stage or whatever, they're easily led.
01:27So, yeah, I think that would be a good idea.
01:29Do you know what, YouTube, TikTok and all that, I don't mind now because he just watches videos, but when it comes down to Snapchat...
01:35The aspect of the internet is very fraught with issues with kids, and you don't know what you're listening to, what you're watching, whether it's false or true.
01:50Some people are saying, oh, you know, my kids, and even the teachers, their attention spans better, and the results are actually improving.
02:01And I think that's possibly because they're interacting more physically with people, teachers, classmates.
02:09A survey of more than 15,000 schools in England by the Children's Commissioner suggests that the vast majority already have policies in place that restrict the use of mobile phones during the school day.
02:22Writer Jack Thorne behind the drama Adolescence is also calling for radical change, backing Australia's recent move to block under-16s from social media altogether.
02:32So the question facing the UK now, is it time to follow suit?
02:36I think it's like anything else. You take something away from someone, they'll go somewhere else to get it, and then it may not be as legit as it could be, let's say.
02:48Technology Secretary Peter Kyle indicated he was considering an app cap whereby children are blocked from using social media after a curfew time as part of online safety measures.
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