A group of state schools in Southwark, south London, have announced they will go smartphone-free, including confiscating phones used at school.

There has been much media coverage in recent years of young people’s addiction to their smartphones and encountering potentially harmful content online.

In April 2024, Ofcom revealed that around a quarter of children aged five to seven (24%) own a smartphone. It also found that the use of social media sites or apps in this age group has increased year-on-year.

The UK government has saod that it is aware of this growing issue but has yet to take decisive regulatory action.

At the end of last year, it announced it was looking at different options to improve parental controls and regulate the online world, with an outright ban for under-16s being considered as one of the possibilities.

Then at the beginning of May, communications regulator Ofcom announced proposals to ensure children were better protected online under the Online Safety Act.

But currently...