\n<\/p>\n
W<\/span>hen Australian Christian College, a high school in the Melbourne outer suburb of Casey, implemented a phone ban on its campus, there were multiple reasons for the crackdown. Peer conflicts between students were escalating online, students were struggling to focus and teachers observed \u201cnotification-driven code-switching\u201d in their students.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen a phone is within reach, a student\u2019s mind is only ever half in the room,\u201d the school\u2019s principal, Caleb Peterson, says. \u201cWe wanted their whole attention back.\u201d<\/p>\n School mobile phones bans typically mandate that mobile devices are kept in bags or lockers during the school day and confiscated on sight and stored in the school office until the end of the day. This month marks two years of phone bans being in operation in most Australian states. Victoria moved early, banning phones in public primary and secondary schools in 2020. By term 4, 2023, WA Tasmania, NSW and South Australia had followed suit; Queensland restricted phones in term 1, 2024.<\/p>\n The announcement of the bans were lauded by parents and politicians, many of whom believed blocking access to phones would enhance focus and minimise distractions, while some experts were sceptical about their effectiveness. Now, two years on, what has actually happened in Australia\u2019s phone-free schools?<\/p>\n <\/span>Phones belonging to students are stored in a container after being \u2018checked-in\u2019 at a NSW high school.<\/span> Photograph: Steven Saphore\/AAP<\/p>\n \u201cThe impacts were clear,\u201d says Peterson. \u201cSince the ban, we\u2019ve seen stronger lesson starts, fewer interruptions and better flow in teaching. Device-driven conflicts have fallen and recess and lunch look different now, [there are] more games, conversations, and positive student-staff interactions. It\u2019s the kind of atmosphere you actually want for young people.\u201d<\/p>\n One year after the ban was implemented, a survey of almost 1,000 public school principals led by the NSW Department of Education\u2019s Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation found that 95% of principals still supported the ban. 81% said that the ban has improved students\u2019 learning, 86% said it has improved socialisation among students, and 87% believed that students were less distracted in the classroom.<\/p>\n Research from South Australia \u2013 released in March this year \u2013 revealed that 70% of teachers reported increased focus and engagement during learning time and 64% of teachers reported \u201ca lower frequency of critical incidents\u201d at school as a result of device use.<\/p>\n Ruqayah, who graduated from a western Sydney high school in 2024, thinks the bans were an \u201coverreaction\u201d. After going through high school with access to phones, she finished her final year with the phone ban in place and says that fellow students were still finding ways to use them in secret.<\/p>\n \u201cTeenagers find their phones very important,\u201d she says. \u201cIt makes them feel secure and safe, so taking away something that is important to them just causes more stress and more worry which makes situations worse at school and harder for teachers, supervisors [and] support workers to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Some students believe anecdotally that removing phones from classrooms limited people\u2019s ability to cheat.<\/span> Photograph: Mike Bowers\/The Guardian<\/p>\n However, anecdotal conversations with other students and staff at both public and private schools shows widespread belief that the bans have had a positive impact. One high school teacher, who did not wish to be named, says the mere presence of phones in the classroom could be distracting, even if they were not used. \u201cThey just present an opportunity,\u201d she says. \u201cWe do see a difference without them.\u201d<\/p>\n Some students feel the bans levelled the school playing field. Amy, a year 11 student from a western Sydney public high school, says the removal of phones from classrooms has limited people\u2019s ability to cheat while also offering social benefits for those who she said were \u201cchronically online\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cStudents [are more comfortable] as it creates safe space and they\u2019re not worried about a photo of them being sent around,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Mariam, a year 11 student at a public high school in southern Sydney, says although the students at her school found the phone ban to be \u201cunreasonable\u201d and felt that teachers \u201csometimes used the ban as a way to abuse their power\u201d, she believed it had a positive impact on her learning. Aisha, a Year 11 student from a private Islamic school in western Sydney, says the phone bans at her school helped her \u201cgain a longer attention span and perform better at school\u201d.<\/p>\n This increased focus is something that Dr Tony Mordini, the principal of Melbourne high school, a selective public school, has seen first-hand. Melbourne high adopted a phone ban policy in January 2020 in compliance with the Victorian Department of Education\u2019s directive.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom a professional perspective, the ban has had a clear positive impact,\u201d he says. \u201cStudents are more focused during lessons, and we\u2019ve seen a reduction in distractions caused by online activity. The absence of phones has also significantly reduced opportunities for in-class cyberbullying or harassment.\u201d<\/p>\n But Mordini says that the phone bans have also meant lesser opportunities for students.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important to acknowledge what we\u2019ve lost,\u201d he says. \u201cPhones can be incredibly powerful learning tools \u2013 capable of storing large amounts of content, supporting research, taking photos, creating videos, and hosting useful apps. Their absence means we\u2019ve had to rely more on school-provided devices and traditional resources.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe were told that phone bans would reduce cyberbullying, increase students\u2019 concentration in class, and relieve teachers of having to discipline students over phone misuse,\u201d says Prof Neil Selwyn, from the school of education, culture & society at Monash University. \u201cSome politicians were promising improvements in student learning and mental health. But one of the main drivers of these bans was undoubtedly that they were popular.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/span><\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n He says schools can be a proxy for broader concerns about children and their use of devices, but he\u2019s sceptical about schools being the best approach.<\/p>\n \u201cYoung people spend way more time outside school, so really we should be talking about how parents and families regulate their children\u2019s device use at home,\u201d he says. \u201cUnfortunately, this isn\u2019t something that most politicians want to do. So, school phone bans are a relatively pain-free way for people to feel that they are doing something about the wider problems we have with excessive digital device use.\u201d<\/p>\n Selwyn says that phone bans in Australia were not set up \u201cwith the intention of properly testing their effectiveness\u201d and says concrete research in this area is \u201cinconclusive, and \u2026 not particularly rigorous\u201d.<\/p>\n He also believes the latest government data from NSW and SA is \u201cnot particularly insightful\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe key question is how these bans play out over time,\u201d he says. \u201cClaiming that these bans are suddenly leading to dramatic improvements makes for a neat political soundbite, but we need a lot more in-depth and sustained investigation of what effects these bans are actually having.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to do a lot better than simply asking principals whether they think students\u2019 learning has improved. In particular, we need to go into classrooms and talk with students and teachers about their different experiences with the bans and what they think would be beneficial going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n He cites a recent UK research from 30 schools and more than 1,200 students which \u201cfound no significant differences for students attending schools with smartphone bans in terms of their mental wellbeing, sleep, education performance in English and maths, or even disruptive classroom behaviour\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018Phone bans aren\u2019t a silver bullet, but they are a critical lever,\u2019 says Peterson.<\/span> Photograph: Dan Peled\/AAP<\/p>\n \u201cYou will find some studies which point out correlations between phone bans and improvements in learning, but these cannot be seen as providing reliable evidence of direct causal relationships,\u201d he says. \u201cIt is naive to think that a phone ban is going to directly and significantly shift the dial on any of these issues in and by itself.\u201d<\/p>\n Peterson says he\u2019s careful not to \u201coversell\u201d the bans, but says they are about \u201ccreating conditions where learning and friendships can actually thrive\u201d. While his school has made exemptions for medical management, disability support, or assistive and translation apps, he believes that academic flow is stronger, conflicts rarer and social cohesion better. \u201cWellbeing data\u201d at his school has shown \u201creductions in psychological distress\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cPhone bans aren\u2019t a silver bullet,\u201d he says. \u201cBut they are a critical lever, especially when paired with digital citizenship, mental-health promotion, and positive playground programs.\u201d<\/p>\n Peterson says that many students have suggested that the ban gives them \u201ca break\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe phone ban is now simply the norm and the gains are real, modest, and worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Australian Christian College, a high school in the Melbourne outer suburb of Casey, implemented a phone ban on its campus, there were multiple reasons for the crackdown. Peer conflicts between students were escalating online, students were struggling to focus and teachers observed \u201cnotification-driven code-switching\u201d in their students. \u201cWhen a phone is within reach, a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[346,493,1442,166,10296,8013,16450,6186,334,264,637],"class_list":{"0":"post-27595","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-bans","10":"tag-changed","11":"tag-children","12":"tag-clear","13":"tag-impacts","14":"tag-implemented","15":"tag-phone","16":"tag-school","17":"tag-whats","18":"tag-years"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}