Ormiston Academies Trust first in England to ban smartphones

The Ormiston Academies Trust (OAT), which runs schools all over the country, is bringing in the rules during the school day due to the “overwhelming” relationship between their use and mental health, according to chief executive Tom Rees.

OAT runs Ormiston Forge on Wrights Lane in Cradley Heath and Ormiston Sandwell Community Academy on Lower City Road, Tividale, Oldbury.

Ormiston Sandwell Community Academy (Image: Google)

The national academy chain with 35,000 students has become the first in England to ban smartphones.

Mr Rees told The Guardian the trust was “seeing huge and real concerns” about pupils’ mental health with a “clear correlation” between those issues and the use of phones and social media.

He said: “Not all mobile phone use is equal and the relationship between that and adolescent mental health, we think, is overwhelming.

“An increasing distraction is catastrophic for the process of learning, and that’s true both at school and at home.

“There is a responsibility for society to respond and a responsibility for schools to make it harder for children to access inappropriate content through the school day and restrict the draw of social media.”

New policies on phones will be introduced at eight of the trust’s 32 secondary schools this term, with the remaining academies following after liaising with parents.

Access to phones is already ruled out at the trust’s primary, special needs and alternative provision schools.

A spokesperson for Ormiston Academies Trust said: “Moving forward and over time, we believe it is desirable for us to move to a position where children do not access their phones at all throughout the school day.

"Teaching and learning, behaviour and children’s mental health are all impacted negatively by mobile phones.

“Our schools are at different stages of the journey.

"A quarter of our secondary schools are piloting different approaches to this over the autumn term, and one is phone-free, where it’s been really successful and is popular with parents and students.

“We want schools to do this at their pace - they are best placed to make the decisions because they know their schools best, and because we want them to consult with their parent and pupil communities.”