Plan to ban mobile phones from city classrooms is a no-brainer - Susan Dalgety

It is the first thing I turn to in the morning when I wake up (sorry, husband). It is where I store my books, my music and my finances (what’s left of them).

I watch TV on it, stay in touch with family and friends and follow world events. If Donald Trump invades Greenland, I will read about it first on social media.

So, even though I don’t use Snapchat or watch clips on TikTok, I understand why teenagers are besotted with their smartphones, because I am too.

But I am an older woman who works from home, usually at her own pace, not an adolescent girl who needs to understand the basics of algebra if she is to pass her Nat 5s.

Which is why I was an early supporter of plans to ban mobile phones from Edinburgh’s classrooms.

It is a no-brainer. No pupil needs to check her bus timetable during a modern studies lesson. No child needs to access cash in the middle of a home economics lesson.

There will be some youngsters who use their phones to manage a medical condition such as diabetes, but for the overwhelming majority of students, their phone is a distraction and I am delighted that that Edinburgh City Council agrees.

The education committee has already decided to ban phones in primary schools, and there is a pilot underway in Portobello and Queensferry High Schools which requires pupils to lock their devices in pouches while in school.

And the council has just launched a public consultation to gauge the views of parents and carers on a ban across all the city’s schools.

Education chief, Councillor James Dalgleish, believes a ban would be a “positive step forward”, but he says a consultation is necessary to address any issues.

No doubt this is sensible – involving citizens in decisions that affect their daily lives is usually the best approach – but I hope Councillor Dalgleish and his colleagues will not change their minds about a phone ban in the unlikely event the consultation suggests they should.

There are a handful of studies that suggest phones in the classroom don’t have a lasting harmful effect, but there are many more that show removing them improves learning outcomes, especially for those pupils who struggle to keep up.

As it takes a child 20 minutes to refocus once she has been distracted by a notification on her phone, it doesn’t take an educational psychologist to understand that smartphones will disrupt even the best run classroom.

The consultation ends on 2 March, and can be accessed on the council’s website.

I may no longer be the parent of a child at school, but I am the loving granny of three students in high school, so I will log on to share my views, using my trusty iPhone of course.

But I will make sure I am not in the middle of something else when I start the survey.