All the evidence shows mobile phones are bad for children's concentration, yet nearly one in three pupils report phones being used in lessons. So today, we're delivering on our promise to ban mobile phones in schools. My article 👇 mol.im/a/13098493
@GillianKeegan @Conservatives @DamianHinds Living in a rural part of the country this is ridiculous for kids. The secondary school my son went to managed this well with joint parental input. They didn’t need you to dictate guidance.
@GillianKeegan @DamianHinds @Conservatives Schools already have the power to manage this. Children need their phones to travel to and from school, but should keep them away in lessons. Banning isn’t useful and just sets up a battleground.
@GillianKeegan @Conservatives @DamianHinds So this achieves exactly what apart from appealing to populist idiots to try and buy a vote or two. It will just lead to increasing confrontations with staff, give teachers even more to do and if kids refuse / offend then more exclusions. Unneeded populist piffle not politics
@GillianKeegan @Conservatives @DamianHinds The ‘guidance’ is not statutory.
@GillianKeegan @Conservatives @DamianHinds Advice. That’s it. That’s all you can do now; offer some bland, boilerplate advice to schools, most of which will already have their own policies in place around phones. You can’t even do a proper dead cat story anymore. It’s pretty pathetic.
@GillianKeegan @Conservatives @DamianHinds Great. I support this. But you actively undermine not just children’s actual futures, but the education they are getting at school. They are taught there that physics is real, and yet you are as a party are ignoring physics and endangering their lives.