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Stopping schools from having “not seen, not heard” phone policies would be “foolish” if the rule is working, a heads’ union leader has told MPs.

Tom Middlehurst, deputy director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders, was speaking after the Conservatives attacked such policies - and after Labour claimed they had been removed from official guidance.

Mr Middlehurst told MPs this morning that schools needed the flexibility to keep policies that worked for them.

Appearing before the Commons Education Select Committee, he said: “Where a ‘not seen, not heard’ policy is already working and has been working for a long time, it would seem foolish to have to change that policy, and potentially to invest quite a lot of money in pouches.”

Some schools have already introduced secure pouches for phones so that students lock their devices away at the start of the day and retrieve them at the end.

The government announced last week that it would make its current guidance on phones in schools statutory - just days after education minister Olivia Bailey told MPs that it had “already solved the problem”.

But the Conservatives called for the rules to go further by banning “not seen, not heard” phone policies in schools.

Does school phone ‘ban’ go far enough?

Shadow education secretary Laura Trott said: “Such policies do not work: children still use their phones, they are allowed them in their bags, they still go to the loos and message their friends, and they are still exposed to nasty content on phones during the school day.”

In response, Ms Bailey said the government had previously “removed from the guidance any reference to any kind of ‘not seen, not heard’ policy in the case studies”.

While the guidance says students must not “have access to” phones during the school day, it does not spell out which specific policies are permitted.

This led Conservative members of the House of Lords to table amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill this week to ban phones from being kept in bags or lockers.

As ����Vlog revealed last week, such a policy may have proven difficult for schools anyway, with only 16 per cent of secondaries providing lockers to all students.

The Conservatives backed down last night after the government pledged to review the current guidance on phones in schools by September 2027.

Mr Middlehurst said that if a “not seen, not heard” policy does not prove effective in a school, it is “obviously a problem”.

“But if it is effective, then actually there doesn’t need to be that investment to go further than that,” he added.

Ms Trott has been approached for comment.

Pouches cost schools ‘up to £40K’

The education committee also heard evidence today from representatives of the and teaching unions.

MPs asked union representatives how much funding schools would need to support new policies to outlaw phones, such as locking them in pouches or keeping them in lockers.

NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede said funding has been “completely eroded” for schools and that pouches would be “incredibly costly”.

“You’re looking at about £20 per unit - if you’ve got 1,000 children in your school, that’s a £20,000 outlay to get going,” he said.

“So if we’re going to do this seriously, that does need to be the most appropriate funding associated with it.”

Mr Kebede’s comments were echoed by Mr Middlehurst, who said ASCL members believe costs could range from £20,000 to £40,000 per school.

Darren Northcutt, NASUWT national official for education and policy, said locking phones in pouches would be the “preferred approach” for the union, but warned that schools would find it difficult to finance this from their budgets.

He was speaking after the government announced that it would now support “some form” of restriction on social media for under-16s after members of the Lords voted in support of a social media ban for a fourth time.

Speaking in the House of Commons yesterday, Ms Bailey said restrictions would be brought in regardless of the outcome of the on the harm caused by social media use among children.

Ms Bailey said: “Let us be clear: the status quo cannot continue. We are consulting on the mechanism, which is the right thing to do. But we are clear that, under any outcome, we will impose some form of age or functionality [restriction] for children under 16.

“I can also confirm that consideration of restrictions such as curfews will be in addition to that, not instead of it.”

The government’s consultation on social media closes on 26 May. It will publish its response in the summer.

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