UK School Phone Ban 2026: The New Statutory Guidance Explained

Guidance, but statutory this time

The Department for Education's publication Mobile phones in schools sets out statutory guidance for individual schools and trusts in England on implementing a policy that prohibits mobile phone use throughout the school day. That is the substantive change from the 2024 position, which was widely reported as advice schools could take or leave. It should be read alongside the behaviour in schools guidance and keeping children safe in education.

Phone-free by default

The guidance is direct: all schools should be mobile phone-free environments by default, and anything other than that should be by exception only. Every school must have a behaviour policy aligned with its legal duties, and as part of it schools should develop a mobile phone policy prohibiting phones and other smart technology with similar functionality — anything that can send or receive notifications over a mobile network, or record audio or video.

What the school day covers

The prohibition is not limited to lessons. It covers lessons, the time between lessons, breaktime and lunchtime. The DfE expects pupils not to have access to their phone at any point across that day.

Sixth form, boarding and BYOD

• Sixth form: schools should consider whether sixth-form students may access phones at certain limited times and locations, reflecting their greater independence — for example a common room — and not in front of younger pupils. They remain subject to the behaviour policy and to sanctions for misuse.
• Boarding and residential schools: phones should be prohibited throughout the teaching day, with separate policies for the rest of the time that still let boarders contact family in private, allowing for time zones.
• BYOD: where laptops or tablets are used for learning under a Bring Your Own Device scheme, BYOD policies should not include mobile phones.

The policy has to be written down and published

The mobile phone policy can sit inside the behaviour policy or stand alone. It should be accessible, consistent and straightforward to follow, and schools should publish details of the policy. Staff, pupils and parents should all be familiar with it, how it is implemented, and the sanctions for breaching it. Pupils should be reminded at the start of each school year.

Method is still the headteacher's call

The guidance is explicit that there are a number of ways to become phone-free and that it is for headteachers to decide what works in their context. It names two examples: schools using lockers to store phones, and schools where pupils hand a phone to staff at the start of the day. Both keep pupils able to carry a phone to and from school while removing access during it.

Where a locking pouch fits

A sealed pouch reaches the same outcome the guidance describes — no access to the phone across the whole school day — without a hand-in counter, locker bank or storage liability. The pupil keeps their own device in their own bag, the pouch is tamper-evident, and a magnetic key releases it at the end of the day. Because nothing is collected, there is nothing to lose, and nothing for staff to sign in and out each morning.

Staff, parents and sanctions

Staff should enforce the policy consistently and should not use their own phones personally in front of pupils during the school day. Parents who need to reach a child should be directed to the school office. On enforcement, the DfE backs headteachers to confiscate phones as a disciplinary penalty where the policy is clearly breached, provided the confiscation is proportionate and accounts for a pupil's circumstances, including age and SEND. A pouch reduces how often that step is needed, because there is no usable phone to catch.

Next step

If your school in England is rewriting its policy for the statutory guidance, request a PhoneLock sample pack or a quote to trial the lock and unlock process with your pupils and staff. Further reading: the UK school phone pouches page and our earlier post on how UK schools enforce the DfE guidance.