Schools give their stance on Trust's plan to ban pupils' mobile phones
Peterborough schools under the Ormiston Academies Trust have spoken about their phone-free policies for pupils.
The education trust, which runs 42 schools across the country, has been in the media spotlight this week after it announced it would ban phones during the school day.
It runs two schools in Peterborough – Ormiston Bushfield Academy (secondary) and Ormiston Meadows Academy (primary).
While many parents around the UK support the phones ban for pupils, others have expressed concern at not being able to contact their children, among other things.
In a statement, 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.”
The Telegraph has spoken to both schools to see if the Trust’s new policy changes anything at a local level.
A spokesperson for Ormiston Meadows Academy, in Matley, said: “As a primary, our school has always been phone-free. For the small number of our pupils who do bring a phone to school, they hand it in to a member of staff at the start of the day to be returned at home time. This creates the very best environment for teaching and learning and removes the negative impacts of mobile phone use.”
Bushfield Academy, in Ortongate, told us they have operated a phone ban for a number of years now, with pupils being required to keep their phones switched off in their bags during the school day.
We asked whether the school planned to implement any stricter rules around phones following the Trust’s recent announcements, but did not receive a response from either the Trust or Bushfield Academy at the time of publication.