Mobile phones in class: Headteacher says they can be used 'positively'

Can you use your phone in class? A lot of schools ban them but now a leading headteacher has said they can be used for "good" and shouldn't be banned completely in the classroom.

People who want phones to be banned from classrooms say they are too distracting and prevent students from interacting with others in the class.

Some schools in the UK ban them and in France the government has bought in law banning phones from school.

But Jane Prescott, headmistress of Portsmouth High School Girls' Day School Trust and the incoming president of the Girls' Schools Association says:

"We demonise mobile phones. And there is certainly an aspect of mobile phones that is destructive... But there's also a huge positive with them, in that communication has never been easier, or better."

The headteacher says banning mobile phones just means pupils will use them where they can't be monitored.

Instead she says there are ways they can be used in class as part of lessons.

"There are lots of ways in which they can use their phones positively without it being a real negative," she said.

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