West Lothian teacher thinks mobile phone ban helps students focus better during class

A West Lothian teacher says a no phone policy in her school is helping students concentrate better as a new study suggests it is not a ‘silver bullet’ in helping pupils get better grades.

It's after a study by the University of Birmingham also found that there was no difference in mental wellbeing, educational attainment and focus for students who attend schools that ban smartphones.

Pupils in Pamela’s school are asked to lock away their phones at the start of the day.

The English teacher told Clyde 1: “It takes that whole problem away and allows the students to concentrate on what matters.

"The big benefit is that they do not have the temptation to look at their phones during class and they are more likely to focus on their work.

"I am also not having to tell students to put their phone away for half the lesson."

The report, which was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), collected year-long data to compare 1,227 students and 30 different secondary schools.

The smartphone bans in schools led to a slight decrease in student using phone (of approximately 40 minutes) but the study suggests that the impact is small, and more could be done in general to make a meaningful reduction.

Dr Maria Michail, Associate professor at the University of Birmingham and researcher involved in the study, told Clyde 1: "We need an integrated approach involving both schools and home environments to address the negative impacts of phone and social media use.

"The use of phones is not solely in school activity therefore school policies require further development in linking to outside school use to enable a more comprehensive approach to reducing overall phone and social media use.

"Just banning smartphones in schools is not enough to tackle the negative impacts of social media use and one explanation for this is that school phone bans do not lower the overall time adolescents spend on their phone.”

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