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A teenager and a mother-of-three have joined as claimants in legal action against the Government’s refusal to ban smartphones in schools. Flossie McShea, 17, and Katie Moore, 43, have added their support to a claim for judicial review set up by two fathers earlier this year. Ministers have claimed it is ‘unnecessary’ to impose a statutory ban because most schools already have restrictions in place voluntarily. However, a survey by the Children’s Commissioner found eight in ten secondaries allow pupils to bring phones in and one in ten allow unfettered use. The legal challenge was launched in July by Will Orr-Ewing, 40, and Pete Montgomery, 45, who both have primary-aged children and are running local campaigns. Yesterday, Miss McShea, from Devon, said the Department for Education (DfE) failed to protect her and other children from online harms during the school day. She said smartphones ‘completely changed my life from Year 7 onwards’ and that she still thinks about content she has been shown. She added: ‘I was exposed to pornography and violent videos, like beheading videos. I was sent a video of two young children who had found a gun and one of them accidentally shot the other one. ‘I had to go home. ‘If we didn’t have phones in school, I wouldn’t have been exposed to things that I would not want to be exposed to.’ Northampton mother Mrs Moore is also joining the claim after her daughter, now 18, told her she had been shown sexually explicit images in school changing rooms on phones. She said it was ‘devastating’ to hear what her daughter had been exposed to online. Mrs Moore believes a complete statutory ban on phones at school is the only solution and said ‘out of sight’ policies for phone use in schools do not go far enough. The group, which is running a campaign called Generation Alpha CIC, will lodge papers in the High Court today. Under the former Conservative government, schools were issued non-statutory guidance intended to stop the use of phones during the school day. It comes after Esther Ghey, mother of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey, said locking mobile phones away in pouches at the start of the school day would create ‘safer and more focused classrooms’. She has campaigned against phones after discovering her transgender daughter’s 15-year-old murderers had accessed violent content online. She believes phone pouches in schools would have given Brianna ‘a better chance in life’. Cheshire Police and Crime Commissioner Dan Price has said he wants the county to be the first where all state secondary schools have them. A Government spokesperson said: ‘Phones have no place in our schools, and leaders already have the power to ban phones. ‘We support headteachers to take the necessary steps to prevent disruption, backed by clear guidance, and have also brought in better protections for children from harmful content through the Online Safety Act.’
