Ban mobiles in school? Eton has a better answer

Gillian Keegan’s new guidelines to keep phones out of the classroom seem destined to fail, says Sean O’Grady – instead, she ought to listen to the elite school that came up with its own eminently sensible and workable policy

There is no actual detriment to a child being deprived of their mobile phone on the school estate (Getty Images)

I think I’ve now worked out what’s wrong with the government’s new guidelines on “banning” mobile phones from schools – they’re actually not guidelines at all. Or, at best, they are drawn so widely as to be virtually meaningless.

Gillian Keegan, still an education secretary on a quest for some gratitude from a callous public, has launched the umpteenth set of guidance on how to tame the scourge smartphone addiction among our young, but I don’t think a grateful nation will be overwhelming her with messages of thanks for her efforts.

Basically, the Department for Education is offering schools four options that, on the basis of some years of direct experience in the matter, they might just have worked out for themselves. Thus, the department suggests a range of options, all glaringly obvious: a) No mobile phones on the school premises; b) Mobile phone handed in on arrival; c) Mobile phones kept in secure location, which the pupil does not access throughout the school day; d) Never used, seen or heard.