'Stop giving smartphones to children' say teachers

Parents of thousands of children have been asked not to give them a smartphone until they're at least 14 amid fears some were using devices for eight hours a day.

Many schools have already banned smartphones on site but one part of the UK thinks it will be the first to have a countywide policy advising parents against giving children smartphones at home.

Using mobiles is already banned in schools in Monmouthshire, south Wales, but due to a rise in cyber-bullying reports and fears phone use at home is affecting schoolwork, schools are going a step further.

"We've got reports of students who are online at two, three, four in the morning," said Monmouth Comprehensive headteacher Hugo Hutchinson.

"We get a lot of wellbeing issues, as do all schools, that come from social media activity online over the weekend, or when they should be asleep.".

Mr Hutchinson said schools had worked on "robust" phone policies but pointed out ultimately children's time was largely spent outside of school, where many still had unrestricted access to smartphones.

While teachers in Monmouthshire acknowledge they can't force parents not to give smartphones to their under-14 children, schools have taken a "big step" to give advice about what parent should do in their own home.

Schools in some areas of the UK have already asked parents not to get their under-14s smartphones - like in St Albans, Belfast and Solihull in the West Midlands.

But Monmouthshire believe they're the first county in the UK where all secondary and primary teachers in both state and private schools are advising against smartphones for more than 9,000 children under the age of 14.

One of the parents being advised not to give their children a smartphone is Emma who said she felt like "the worst parent in the world" after continuously telling her 12-year-old son Monty he wasn't allowed one.

"He was feeling left out," she said.

"He would be sitting on the school bus without a phone and everybody else would be doing the journey with a phone. He found that quite difficult. I think for boys it's more about games on the phone."

The mum-of-three is worried what her son could be exposed to online and how "addictive" devices were but offered Monty a "brick phone" – a term to describe older models that can't connect to the internet and is only capable of calls and texts.

As the thought of giving Monty a smartphone when he reached secondary school had become one of her "biggest fears", she and other parents said they were relieved schools are taking ownership.

Schools hope the intervention of teachers would help those parents that were worried saying no to a smartphone would mean their child was "left out".

But other some argued their children had been using smartphones without any problems.

Nicholas Dorkings' son, who is moving up to secondary school in September, had his own smartphone when he was eight.

"He's always sort of been on one," he said.

"It's like a calming thing, or [something to use] out of boredom. He's not on it that much, he's more of a TV boy. He doesn't pull it out his pocket every five minutes, he can put it down and just leave it."

Nicholas said he could understand why schools wanted to get involved, but he believed smartphones had become essential to how young people communicate.

Eleven-year-old Lili's primary school class is one of the first to be targeted by the new policy, after teachers wrote to their parents urging them to consider "brick phones" - if they felt their child needed something for travelling to school.

Lili said she felt "14 to 15" was about the right age for children to get their first smartphone as by then they might stand a better chance of knowing if something they read online "wasn't true".

"We found out that one in four children have been cyber-bullied within our school, which is really strange," said the year six pupil.

"It shouldn't be right, there shouldn't be the chance for people to be cyber-bullied, because we're really young."

Lili's classmate Morgan said she had got a smartphone but had decided to stop using it after learning more about them in school.

"Most kids around here have smartphones," said the 11-year-old.

"They are just 100% always on it. When kids come over to play at some households they just go on their smartphones and just text."

"I used to go on it to just scroll but I got bored - but then I'd also get bored not being on my smartphone. I just decided to stop scrolling to read a book or the trampoline."

Schools in Northern Ireland are advised to restrict pupils from using phones, in Scotland teachers are backed to introduce phone bans while in Wales, headteachers have been told smartphones shouldn't be banned "outright".

In England, the children's commissioner has said banning phones should be a decision for head teachers but insisted parents had "the real power" to alter how their children used phones with more time spent on them outside of school.

So now every parent of all of Monmouthshire's state and private schools will be told about the county's new smartphone over the coming months.

"This is not a school issue. This is a whole community and society issue," added Mr Hutchinson, whose comprehensive school in Monmouth has 1,700 pupils.

"Like all schools, we are experiencing much higher levels of mental health issues as a result. Addiction to smartphones, addiction to being online.

"We have students who on average are spending six, seven, eight hours a day online outside school. We've got reports of students who are online at two, three, four in the morning.

"So the impact on their school day, the impact on their learning and the impact on their life chances is really fundamental."

In a token of solidarity to their son Monty and to encourage their two younger daughters, Emma Manchand and her husband Kev offered give up their own smartphones.

"We do 24-hours without the phone, which has been quite a challenging," she said.

"Sometimes we might slightly fail. But the first time I did it, although I was nervous, I felt like I'd had a little mini break.

"The kids love it as well, because of course they get to be the ones telling us to put our phones down."