Phone free classrooms: Education Secretary's statement

Presiding Officer, my priority is to ensure our school environments support pupils to thrive and reach their full potential.

There is no doubt that new and evolving technologies can provide opportunities for learning and communication. However, they also bring risk of a spectrum of harm. We need to recognise the negative impact of mobile phones and screen time and frankly protect our children and young people.

That is why, now is the time for phone-free learning environments.

Presiding Officer, I am pleased that there is cross-party consensus on this issue and that we can work together on it.

We owe it to our pupils and teachers to do so and to create an environment which is conducive to learning and teaching.

This government has already been clear that any school or education authority that wishes to introduce restrictions on mobile phones in their classrooms or across the school estate has minister’s full support.

That is the position in our national guidance, introduced in 2024 in response to the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research of 2023, which highlighted the disruption that mobiles phones were causing in our classrooms.

Since we introduced this guidance, many schools and education authorities have acted to restrict the use of mobile phones and I welcome that. But there is too much variability.

We have listened carefully to the calls from parents, carers and teachers to ensure greater consistency across the country to support children’s learning and their development.

We continue to hear concerns about classroom disruption where restrictions are absent and wider impacts on pupils’ wellbeing from excessive screentime, exposure to harmful online content and the effects of online bullying.

Presiding Officer, that is why we will shortly publish a consultation on legislation to make our learning environments phone free, meeting our commitment to do so in the first 100 days of this government. 

Last week, in one of my first school visits, I visited James Gillespie’s High School where I met with staff and with young people to discuss their mobile phone policy.

The school has a clear policy of no phones on school grounds during school hours this includes campus, classrooms, corridors and the cafeteria.

The rules for young people are clear: See it. Hear it. Lose it.

The staff and the young people with whom I spoke separately highlighted benefits to me including – fewer distractions during classes, reduced conflict between pupils and between staff and pupils, and more interaction between peers.  The young people simply reflected to me how much they welcomed the break from otherwise addictive apps and content.

I want to hear from more pupils through our consultation. Scotland has been a pioneer in the advancement of rights for children and young people, and it is vital that their views be front and centre in the decisions we take.

We also want to understand the range of views from parents and carers, from school staff, from education authorities and interested organisations.

Their views will shape our legislation and allow us to deal with a number of complex issues.

For example, as our current guidance makes clear, there will be occasions where exemptions are required, such as where young people use their phones to monitor medical conditions or for young carers who need to maintain contact with home. Schools who have already implemented phone free policies per our guidance are managing this well.

We will fully explore and understand all these issues to inform sensible legislation.  

Legislation is the only way we can mandate learning environments to be phone free but until then, existing guidance allows all schools to introduce this policy now.

Therefore, Presiding Officer, to signal our intent that schools should move to introduce restrictions, whilst we prepare legislation; we are working with education authorities to refresh our current guidance to support and encourage more schools to introduce restrictions ahead of a law change.

We are again working with the Scottish Advisory Group on Relationships and Behaviour in Schools, meaning the updated guidance will be informed by the views of organisations including COSLA, the Association of Directors of Education, the main teaching unions, and parents’ and carers’ representatives, and as well, crucially, the views of young people.

The guidance will set out expectations on key areas, including engagement with the whole school community – pupils, staff, families – which is required to build support for their policies.  

I am pleased to inform the Chamber that this updated guidance will be published by the end of June, to support schools to consider their approach from the next term.

Finally, Presiding Officer, let me be clear that this issue rests within a wider Public Health Approach to online harm that the government is committed to.

We recognise a spectrum of harm associated with the significant intensification that we’ve seen in children and young people’s use of online platforms and smartphones.

This spectrum includes but is not limited to loss of concentration and wasting precious childhood years at one end through the absorption of harmful often violent, misogynistic and radicalising content, right through to incitement to self-harm, extreme bullying and in some cases, grooming. 

A public health approach means being clear about the harms and taking a holistic approach to addressing them.

Therefore, when considering the impact of mobile phones in schools, we must think not only about the distraction in the classroom or bullying during the school day, but also the higher risk of depression, anxiety, poor sleep and poor health in adolescence that can arise from smartphone use.

A Public Health approach means engaging the whole school community so that schools can create the conditions to get it right: for school wellbeing, learning outcomes, and for long-term health.

I want to be clear that schools are of course only one part of the solution. I want to highlight action we are taking to support parents and young people to ensure social media companies are held to account.  

Whilst the main policy and legislative levers - such as the Online Safety Act - are held by the UK Government, in Scotland we are taking all available steps to act here and now whilst we wait for the UK Government to step up.

And let me be clear, we do support the UK Government’s consultation on the banning of social media for under 16s, but we also don’t think that will solve the problem of online harms.

We need more concerted action to force social media and tech giants to do more to protect our children - that is a fight that I will not shy away from.

We’ve also already taken action to provide guidance for parents of younger children, publishing advice on our Parent Club website for parents of children aged under 5 on screen time, and this is in line with the World Health Organisation’s guidance. 

And we continue to fund resources, such as Mind Yer Time work, which gives children and young people advice on social media use, screen time, sleep, and their impact on body image and mental wellbeing.We will now build on this work by funding a national public health campaign to make young people and their families aware of how to use social media, screen time, and online time in a safe and healthy manner and that might mean not using it at all, Presiding Officer

We need families to be aware of the harmful consequences and risks to mental health and sleep, body image, and the benefits of spending time with friends and family in real life. And parents must be supported in this, Presiding Officer – never shamed.

We will also use the example of Ireland’s successful ‘Pause Before You Post’ campaign to make parents and carers aware of the potential harms of ‘sharenting’ – sharing images and details of their children on social media, that can be pieced together and inadvertently create a digital footprint for young people.

So, this is action we can, and are taking now, but Scotland does not currently have powers to act on areas such as the regulation of internet services.

We will take steps to push the UK Government to take more action, including ensuring Ofcom uses its powers to hold tech companies and social media providers to account. Regulation has fallen substantially behind where it needs to be.

We will advocate for a Social Media Levy on companies to invest in programmes to support safer online engagement for young people, improving mental health and supporting online literacy.

I was also very interested in the comments of the former UK Safeguarding Minister, who in her resignation letter to the Prime Minister said she had solutions that would end the ability of children in the UK to take naked images of themselves on every phone and device in the country.

Presiding Officer, if this technology exists it must be rolled out without delay. The Children’s Minister Siobhian Brown has written to the new safeguarding Minister to ask about this technology, to confirm our support of such a move and to reiterate our desire to work closely with the UK Government on the important issue of safeguarding.

Presiding Officer, our children and young people are growing up in an online world which was unimaginable 20 years ago when I was at school and recall the first smart phones emerging then. The rapid evolution of technology means our thinking must also adapt.

This government is clear that a public health approach to respond to these challenges is appropriate.

Creating phone-free learning environments is an important part of this holistic approach. Our schools should be safe and nurturing environments for our children and young people, where they can learn free from the distractions of mobile phones. Teachers will benefit from this too.

So, I look forward to working constructively with members on this issue and the wider issues of freeing our children from intensifying online harm.