Mobile phone bans in England’s schools are set to be enshrined in law after the Government announced plans to make the restrictions statutory.
The Department for Education said it intends to amend the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to give legal force to existing guidance, which currently advises schools to prohibit phones on site but stops short of compelling them to do so. Under the current arrangements, head teachers are free to disregard the guidance if they see fit.
A DfE spokesperson said the move was intended to formalise what the majority of schools were already doing in practice. “We have been consistently clear that mobile phones have no place in schools, and the majority already prohibit them,” the spokesperson said. “This amendment makes existing guidance statutory, giving legal force to what schools are already doing in practice.”
The story is developing.
