Pupils voice their fears over Edinburgh's new ban on mobile phones in schools
"I voted, I can get married, I can go to uni, but my phone out at lunch is too much freedom apparently.”
Pupils fear Edinburgh's ban on mobile phones in schools could reduce access to research information, make it harder to contact family, and lead to a risk of crushing amid a scramble to unlock phone pouches at the end of the day.
From the start of the new term, pupils in all the Capital's secondary schools are barred from using mobile phones from when they arrive at school until they go home. There are exemptions for those with medical or other needs.
Edinburgh is one of the first councils in Scotland to introduce such a ban. But the Evening News revealed on Tuesday that the pouches in which pupils must place their phones - and which are costing the council up to £400,000 - would not be available on day one and some schools may not get them until the start of October.
The new ban follows a trial scheme at two city high schools - Portobello and Queensferry - but many pupils have doubts about it.
Charis Wright, from Boroughmuir High School, said pupils there were already banned from having their phones out during learning times, but there were problems when the WiFi was not working, pupils forgot their iPads or they were researching a topic the iPads could not be used for. "For example,” said Charis, “during Nat 5 mods we did crime and law so we had to use our phones to research things like rape statistics."
She said most pupils questioned the practicalities of the pouches and the ban. "As the Evening News has highlighted, we are a massively overcrowded school and so what I and a lot of my friends are worried about is getting our phones unlocked from the overpriced pieces of fabric - I thought education had no money, not enough for more teachers or better pay at least - with the massive risks for crushes when trying to exit the building."
She said she also needed her phone for contacting her family over logistics. She said: "It does sound like such a typical teen answer when I say I need my phone - but I do. Society is now set up to be a digital world - why are we trying to stop teens using their personal property to acclimatise to this new way of working?
"I voted, I can get married, I can go to uni, but my phone out at lunch is too much freedom apparently.
"I don't think the ban will work effectively and I think we will spend too much time and money thinking about it when we should be thinking about teens' mental health and giving support for those who need it."
Emmy Anagnostou, a pupil at James Gillespie's High School, said she did not have a phone, but thought the ban would be good for concentration levels in class.
"I think it'll be the sort of change that feels difficult to deal with, especially for people who use their phone often in school, at the beginning but that shouldn’t be difficult to get used to."
But she said she was "a bit sceptical" about how schools would enforce the policy. "Ours is supposed to be a no-phone campus but students still bring and use their phones consistently and with few consequences."
Joy Grisewood, from Portobello High School, said the trial of the ban there, using phone pouches, had been "a relative success".
She said: "Many students, including myself, had doubts, believing it would become a safety risk for those who need to contact parents, cause excessive queueing and reduce access to websites for learning because of the highly flawed restrictions placed on iPads.
"However, a trial period of a year has proved us wrong on many of the suggested problems. There are numerous phone unlockers, meaning students can easily get away as fast as they usually would, and if for any reason a student needs to leave school prematurely they can simply get their phone unlocked in the office on their way out.
"The pouch is a simple design where you push the magnet in once your phone has been inserted, and touch the magnet to the unlocker to have it pop open.
"Of course there are still many ways of cheating the system which many students exercise, but despite the fact that people can still access their phones, phone usage in school has dramatically reduced as it's helped students realise they don't need their phones as often as they thought.
"For S6 students a phone unlocker is stationed in the lounge for use during free periods, but I would suggest that this should be accessed by anyone who has a partially filled timetable.
"I think the system we use is highly effective and I don't know how the new changes will affect this. Hopefully for the better."