Mobile Phones and Social Media

Chancellor’s strongly promotes the idea of limiting ‘Recreational Screen Time’ and the monitoring of students’ internet use. 

We enforce strict rules around mobile phones, smartphones are now banned in school.  Any student who is caught using their mobile phone will have their phone confiscated and will be set an after school detention. We have taken this decision as a result of the extensive evidence demonstrating the damage and harm caused by inappropriate online content on the internet, incidents of cyber bullying and other issues such as sexting, grooming, coercion and abusive interactions. 

It is clear that many (young) people are not able to behave responsibly online and we do not believe that secondary aged children need a smartphone. Even if your child is responsible, our strong advice is to protect your child and resist buying them a smartphone.

We also encourage parents/carers to enforce a technology, games and a mobile device ‘detox’ during the school week and to limit use at weekends. Current guidelines produced by the UK Chief Medical officer suggests::

• Leave mobile phones outside of bedrooms to support good quality sleep

• Put phones away when outside, especially when crossing the road

• Have screen-free mealtimes

• Know the very serious impact of sharing inappropriate (nude) images or messages

• Restrict recreational screen time to no more than 2 hours per day

• Follow social media rules. Children under the age of 13 are not considered mature or responsible enough to use 

• Always be aware of what children may be doing online

• Make sure your child knows who to talk to if they are worried about online safety and cyber bullying. Parents, trusted adults such as your child's form tutor, the pastoral assistants and/or Head of Year can all help if asked. 

We would urge all parents/carers who wish to know where their child is to purchase a tracker rather than a ‘brick’ phone but accept that some parents may wish to purchase a ‘brick’ phone in order to stay in contact with their child outside of school. We hope that, over time, all parents/carers will embrace this decision, using the school’s approach to give them confidence to impose strict rules about technology use at homes and remove the peer pressure felt by children to be online.