Rachel Moore says phones should locked away at schools

“I don’t teach. I control behaviour. I can’t teach because of the disruption in class. Then there are the parents who don’t care if I teach their children or not.”

A verbatim quote from a talented and passionate educator who quit his job in a state secondary school because, rather than passing on knowledge of the subject he loved, he faced daily behaviour he had never encountered in a classroom growing up, and never imagined he would face when he became a teacher.

Addiction was an underlying factor, he said. To mobile phones.

How can a teacher compete against the overwhelming distraction of instant communication with the outside world in their pocket?

He left before schools finally woke up to the blatantly obvious that students taking mobile phones into the classroom was effectively switching off teachers.

It’s tantamount to permitting them games consoles and their entire friendship – and enemy – groups to join them in lessons.

Teaching and learning, behaviour and children’s mental health are all impacted negatively by mobile phones, yet education experts clearly believed that young people would focus on glacial geography or algebra despite the temptation to check their notifications.

Banning mobile phones from schools is as good as waving a magic wand to address multiple issues.

So, it’s befuddling that parents would oppose a ban but, apparently, some parents are prepared to fight for constant access to their children during the school day rather than encourage their education.

Schools can be their own worst enemy, expecting teachers to effectively work with their hands tied behind their back and young people to have super self-control.

Many adults can’t sit through a meeting, a film or a conversation without their eyes and hands wandering to their phone, so to expect children to do so is madness.

But it’s not the government’s job to take up valuable parliamentary time – and public money – imposing the blinking obvious that schools should have done themselves.

But Labour MP Josh MacAlister has proposed a new law to protect children from online harm by banning mobiles in schools. 

It doesn’t take a gifted and talented scholar to work out that schools where phones are locked in boxes for the day is a happier community.

Phone-free schools have seen lunchtime and sports clubs flourish, fewer children wanting to go to the loo during lessons and break and improvements in children’s mental health.

Principal of one of the Ormiston Academy schools, which banned phones at the start of this term, have seen incredible healthy results with a 50pc reduction in the number of safeguarding referrals made regarding social media and content school deemed inappropriate.

A Netherlands college banned mobiles six years ago and transformed its culture – despite 20pc of parents, students and, surprisingly teachers, opposing a ban.

A buzzy social school culture returned, students’ anxiety levels reduced, and a community of phone addicts was replaced by young people having real conversations, playing together and debating issues. Cyber bullying cases dropped too.

Yet, a key sticking point is that phones are often used in the classroom in learning.

Language lessons demand Duolingo and other lessons demand their use, which feels discriminatory against young people who don’t have the privilege of a smartphone, or whose parents don’t want them to have internet access 24-7.

Lock phones in a box at the school door, improve learning, let teachers get on with their job and, most importantly, give young people the healthier happier school experience they deserve.

Treat food addiction like drug addiction

If someone cannot work because they are too obese, and an injection jab and support to lose weight will help them get a job, it feels like perfect sense.

Food addiction should be treated like drug addiction. It is an illness and disease, often caused by underlying issues, that can only be solved with expert medical help.

Supporting someone back to self-respect and employment feels like a far more appropriate and healthy use of weight loss drugs than shrinking to a size zero lollipop that Ozempic has been used for so much in the US.

Getting people back into work is crucial for a thriving nation. Changing lives often needs more than motivation and self-control, it needs support.

In a move that will ultimately take pressure off the NHS too, it feels more like a wise plan than a gimmick.

Be careful what you wish for

Liam Payne was just a 14-year-old boy when he sang Frank Sinatra like a bird to Simon Cowell.

With his floppy hair and adolescent frame, he was a money-making vessel. A clear talent for rich pickings.

He’s not the first, and won’t be the last, to discover that global fame and endless wealth is not enough for a happy and healthy life.

Too often, it comes with loneliness, suspicion and demons that no size bank balance can assuage.

“There’s a dark side to fame that people don’t really understand,” Payne told The Times in 2019, “I’m in a privileged position. But this shit is not always easy.”

Such a sad waste of life of a young father, whose seven-year-old son will grow up without a dad and whose family mourns the tragic needless loss of an ordinary boy from Wolverhampton who had something special.