SMARTPHONES IN SCHOOLS
Hitchin Boys’ School’s phone-free revolution
Journalist SAL MCKEOWN finds out what happened when Hitchin Boys’ School went phone-free
online. Audiences generally like phone- free venues. With no annoying ringtones and lit up screens, they provide a more satisfying experience, with fewer distractions and a better atmosphere. Some schools using Yondr go for a quick and total implementation of the phone ban. Hitchin Boys’ went for more of a drip drip approach over six months from March to September. Dami started with
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I was really anxious. £20,000 of the school’s money. I’d only been there three years and I was staking my career on it.” I interviewed Damilola Ajagbonna, Deputy Head Teacher at Hitchin Boys’ School. He talked to me about buying Yondr pouches to make the school a mobile free zone. Obviously, a big capital spend like this is risky, especially when you can’t run a pilot scheme with one year group. It was all or nothing.
Even in schools with strict rules, where phones must be kept in bags during school hours, students trot out every excuse in the world: ‘My mum just texted’, ‘I was checking exam dates.’ It is more than a behavioural issue, it’s an epidemic. Even those young people who have good school attendance, comply with the rules for uniform and homework often try to bend this rule. Check the toilets during lessons and you might catch a pupil binge-watching Netflix. Check the disabled loo at lunchtime and you might find half a dozen chilling and sharing social media posts. It is a daily game of cat and mouse with phones disappearing before the teacher identifies the culprit. Reinforcing the No Phones rule takes up far too much of teachers’ time and energy.
A more radical approach
Dami was looking for a once and for all solution that would stop the attrition. He visited a school that had adopted Yondr pouches. These are already used in entertainment venues to stop the audience from filming performances and sharing them
assemblies to all the year groups, talking to them about the “dangers of these really powerful tools, how they fragment attention, empathy and compassion.”
The total ban came into force at the beginning of this school year. The staff did a soft launch just before the summer holidays and a few parents expressed their concerns. These ranged from simple questions such as, ‘What if my son misses his bus because he’s unlocking his phone?’ This happens automatically when boys pass the unlocking station on the way out of school. Yondr pouches are designed for massive audiences surging out of venues at the end of a performance, so they are designed for a quick exit.
One parent asked: ‘What if a school shooter comes on site? How will my son get hold of me?’ Schools have contingency plans for such events, and hundreds of mobiles flashing and pinging away would be most unsafe.
Changing the culture
The school is noisier now but there are fewer fights. Staff are handing out more footballs at lunchtime because there’s nothing to do at break times but talk to each other and play. They are also finding boys lingering over lunch. “Before the pouches came in, they would just grab their food, wolf it down and go,” said Dami. “Now we have a different problem. They sit and chat for ages. We’ve got the space for it, so it’s not an issue. But at first, we were astonished that they were all sat there engaging in long conversations.” More unexpectedly, the pastoral team is getting more walk-ins. Whereas children would bottle up issues or message family, now they
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are talking to staff. The school has some boys who engage in sports seven days a week or are constantly going to a gym to improve their appearance and fitness. At school, they are exhausted. In the past, they talked about it on Snapchat. Now they tell their teachers how they are feeling. While the school is pleased with the outcome, they have no illusions. Dami said: “I’m not suggesting this is a panacea. Come the 3.30 bell, you know they are running to unlock their phones. We have not cured the addiction by any stretch of the imagination. But during school hours they are free and are genuinely having fun.”
Reducing stress
The main advantage of Yondr pouches is that everyone is in the same boat. The students always have their phones with them but cannot use them. Children have said that they feel less anxious in school and they no longer have that nagging feeling that they are missing out. If they have a bad day at school, they do not have to worry that it will be there for all to see on social media. They can leave their mistakes behind them.
Yondr pouches may also be a selling point when it comes to recruiting and retaining staff. A recent job advert in TES for Thurstable School, near Colchester, offered ‘a two week October half term break, CPD within the school day on a Friday with teaching completed by lunchtime and a Yondr pouch system that means we are a genuinely mobile phone free school.’
Now into the second phone free term at Hitchin Boys’ School, what do the pupils think about it? Dami said: “The best reference we had was from a Year 10 boy. He said: ‘It’s not as terrible as I thought.’
March 2025
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