England to make school phone bans legally binding in classrooms

England’s school phone rules were set for a harder edge as ministers said they would amend the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to make mobile-phone bans statutory, turning a policy that already exists in most schools into a legal requirement. Education minister Jacqui Smith said the change would create “a clear legal requirement for schools”, a shift that matters most where headteachers still treat phone restrictions as optional rather than mandatory.

The Department for Education updated its guidance on 19 February 2026 and told schools to start using it from April 2026. That guidance already says schools should be mobile phone-free by default and that phones should be prohibited throughout the school day, including lessons, breaktimes and lunchtime. Once the policy becomes law, the question changes from whether schools should restrict phones to how they will prove they are doing it every day.

Ofsted has moved in the same direction. From 1 April, inspectors will discuss mobile-phone policies with leaders and check how those policies are communicated to parents and pupils, how consistently they are enforced, and what impact they have on learning, behaviour and wellbeing. That focus on enforcement is likely to make the ban feel less like broad guidance and more like a compliance issue, with schools expected to show they have practical systems for confiscation, storage and escalation when pupils refuse to hand devices over.

The legal change would also formalise a pattern already visible in most schools. A 2025 survey by the Children’s Commissioner found 99.8% of primary schools and 90% of secondary schools already had policies limiting pupils’ phone use during the school day. But DfE data cited in 2024 found about 29% of secondary pupils still reported phones being used when they were not supposed to be in most or all lessons, suggesting that policy and classroom reality often diverged.

The government has tied the measure to child wellbeing and online safety, pointing to countries where mobile phones are already prohibited or restricted in schools, including France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Saudi Arabia and Singapore. Teacher groups have split over the approach. The NASUWT has backed a statutory ban, while the Association of School and College Leaders has criticised repeated ministerial crackdowns on phones. The new law would force that debate into daily school discipline, where the real test will be whether a legal ban reduces distraction without deepening conflict between pupils, parents and staff.