A West London headmaster has said said giving smartphones to young kids is akin to “choosing to take away their childhood” as his school prepares to largely ban the devices in the upcoming year.
The Fulham Boys School’s head David Smith is gearing up to implement the new policy once the 800 students begin returning later this week.
Applying to those in years seven to 11, the move will limit the phones allowed in the school to three ‘brick’ options, which have no access to the internet and only allow texting and calling. Anyone caught with a smartphone in school will have their device confiscated for six weeks, Mr Smith said, not inclusive of holidays.
The head of the decades-old school said that he and his staff had been considering students’ phone use for some time, ahead of the Government guidance issued earlier this year on restricting the devices during learning.
Prior to making the decision, Mr Smith ran an anonymous survey among his 800 students to get a better gauge of the potential impacts of their smartphones. Among his findings were that 97 per cent estimated they received more than 50 notifications and messages a day, and that 38 per cent had no restrictions on their phone use.
The forthcoming move to ban smartphones and only allow a few ‘brick’ options was communicated to parents by letter back in May. Mr Smith wrote how over the spring term, staff had received a series of briefings in which they considered the effects of smartphones, and how the technology can be misused.
“In all honesty, it was sobering for us as staff to consider these things in relation to our personal use of phones, and we were challenged to create a better school environment for the boys, with even clearer boundaries,” he continued.
The response from parents, he said, has been varied. Some argue the school is fighting a losing battle, though others have been more enthusiastic. Some younger parents in particular, who have children due to start school, have been ‘really, really happy’, he said, as it removes some of the pressure of purchasing a phone for them.
Mr Smith said part of his appeal to parents is to ‘hold the line’, and not buy smartphones for young kids. However, if they already have a smartphone, he is urging parents to consider how often their child is on it, and why, and to have an ‘honest conversation’ about their usage.
“In my view, once you hand a smartphone over to a child, you are choosing to take away their childhood,” he said.
Mr Smith referenced concerns around issues such as young people becoming ‘zombified’ by social media algorithms and the toxic masculinity characters such as Andrew Tate promote online. He also drew a stark contrast with sexual education and how it is taught to children.
He said: “My strong view is that we educate young people on sex before they are having sex. It’s really important that we educate them before they are engaging in sexual activity. But we are having to educate young people and parents on phones when they already have a phone, and the door is already open. We are not anti-technology, we’ve identified three ‘brick’ phones anyway, so we haven’t gotten rid of phones.”
While The Fulham Boys School will not be the first to ban smartphones, with the likes of Eton already announcing such measures, Mr Smith said it is believed to be the first state establishment to replace them with potential ‘brick’ replacements.
The logic, he said, is that this allows parents to still be able to receive a text or a call from their child if need be, though prevents students from accessing and using either social media or the internet at large.
“I see this as a really positive thing, but I can totally understand why there is anxiety,” he added. “What we’re really passionate about is we understand the advantages of technology. We want to work with those advantages and we want to find a solution that enables technology to be used safely for young people.”
According to data compiled by Human Mobile Devices (HMD), 61 per cent of parents surveyed in the UK said they were concerned about their child’s phone use. The data further found 62 per cent of parents surveyed across five countries want their kid’s school to remove or ban smartphones.
