Friday, June 6, 2025 - A British primary school has banned smartphones after a pupil's phone was found with 9,000 messages sent in just one night on a year's WhatsApp group.
Children at Blackhorse Primary School in Bristol will now be
stopped from bringing smartphones to school after a debate around safety was
sparked by multiple notifications spotted on a pupil's screen by a teacher.
In recent years, pupils have been allowed to bring
smartphones to school but had to hand them into the teacher during lesson time.
Until a phone was accidentally left in the teacher's cupboard overnight and was
returned to the pupil the next day with 9,000 notifications of activity in a
Year Six WhatsApp group.
Shocked at the discovery, executive headteacher Simon Botten
started a debate with parents on whether smartphones should be allowed in
schools, and now pupils can no longer bring them in.
Writing on his personal blog, Mr. Botten said he had
also been concerned at the risk of increased cyber-bullying and online
predatory behaviour - and that the move had been broadly backed by parents.
Mr Botten wrote of the Year Six pupil's phone: 'The teacher
picked up the phone, waking it, only to see a notification of 9,000 missed
messages from the Year 6 pupil WhatsApp group overnight. Nine thousand messages
in a 15-hour overnight period.
'After nearly two decades in headship, I have watched this
technological phenomenon unfold slowly.
'At first, it was imperceptible: the odd argument via
old-fashioned texts, the odd child seeing something online which they shouldn't
(always at home). But over the years I have seen the risks grow ever more
significant and ever more frequent.'
He said these included rising cyberbullying on WhatsApp,
inappropriate images being exchanged, a rise in hanging out online instead of
outside and of children 'glued to their phones' once handed the devices back at
the end of the day.
He continued: 'And then something much darker. A rise in
predatory strangers approaching children online in their bedrooms whilst their
parents watch Eastenders downstairs.
'Near miss, after near miss. But, the thing is, if you have
enough near misses - the chances of a collision rises to 100 per cent.'
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