Smartphone restrictions lead to socialising, reading and sport

  • 23rd June 2025

St Edward’s School in Oxford has installed landline phones in every boarding house, with the lack of smartphones leading to a significant change in pupils’ activities, The Sunday Times has reported.

The co-educational boarding and day school for pupils aged 13 to18 reintroduced the landline phones last September after 15 years without them, as part of a radical overhaul of its mobile phone rules, which aim to reduce mindless scrolling on smartphones in evenings and at weekends.

Between the ages of 13 and 15, boarders may not use a mobile phone, day or night, during the school week. At weekends, they have their phone for only a few hours a day, and must hand it in by 9pm.

The school’s warden Alastair Chirnside said: “Since we changed the phone policy, we have seen a massive increase in participation. The numbers are phenomenal.”

Downe House School in Cold Ash near Newbury, Berkshire, an all-girls’ boarding school, has also introduced stricter phone measures, which have reportedly increased reading among pupils.

Headmistress Emma McKendrick said: “You will quite often see the girls playing board games together, like Bananagrams. There is no question that they read more now, but they also sit and talk more.”

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