More than half of secondary students have seen their peers using mobile phones in at least some lessons when they were not supposed to, according to a Department for Education survey.
Some 34 per cent of students said others were using a phone in some lessons, another 19 per cent said it happened in most lessons and 9 per cent said it happened in every lesson.
The survey answers came through the DfE’s panel of , based on responses from more than 2,00 students in Years 7 to 13.
Students were asked what types of pupil misbehaviour they had experienced in the past week in a survey carried out in June.
Another 26 per cent of respondents said that students had rarely used mobile phones when they were not supposed to and 11 per cent said it never happened.
School mobile phone policies
Students were also asked about their schools’ mobile phone policies. The most common answer given - by 61 per cent of respondents in secondary schools - was that they were allowed to take the phone to school, but that it must be kept out of sight and is not allowed to be used.
Another 12 per cent said they could only use their phone during a lesson when their teacher said this was allowed. Some 8 per cent said that phones have to be handed in and cannot be accessed during the day and another 8 per cent said they are not allowed to bring a phone on to school grounds.
Only 2 per cent of respondents told the survey that they were able to use their phone at any time.
The survey findings come amid calls for the government to impose a statutory phone ban in schools.
Last week, at the Schools and Academies Show, former schools minister Sir Nick Gibb warned that smartphones were “asbestos” for children as he urged ministers to ensure that all schools were “phone-free”.
Earlier this year the government blocked an attempt by the Conservatives to ban pupils from having mobile phones in school.
Labour MPs defeated a Conservative amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which would have forced headteachers to introduce a policy that stopped the use and carrying of phones by pupils in schools.
The education minister at the time, Stephen Morgan, had dismissed the move as Conservatives “jumping on a bandwagon”, and said measures were already in place to allow schools to ban phones.
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