Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall am 10:06 am ar 14 Mai 2024.
I will keep my comments brief, Sir George, to make sure that I do not impact on others’ time, but I will say that I totally agree with my hon. Friend. I am a dinosaur—I like paper and I like to scribble over things. When I was a teacher, I liked having physical paper to write comments on. I certainly did not want to try to use interesting gadgets to get ideas across. Although there is great technology, like Google Classroom, that can be used effectively, ultimately we should not move away from paper-based exercises, because they are still useful, particularly for handwriting skills, which are so important for young people. Fewer and fewer young people have the chance to practise handwriting, because we have all fallen into the trap of being able to type quickly on our phones.
To sum up, let me say loud and clear that I know the Minister gets this. He has been working tremendously hard on the Online Safety Act and on what can be done to make sure that we enforce the rules that have come through that legislation while also looking at the wider debate around this policy area, but he now needs to go back to the Department for Education and we need to end the era of guidance and make it enforceable and directional from the Government.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge pointed out, schools should have the funding for lockers or storage boxes, to make sure that phones are put away and children can enjoy a childhood in the school day without their phone. Believe me, when I was a head of year I was sick and tired of having to deal with parents coming into school to tell me that their child was receiving harmful online bullying content in the evening via social media communications. It was totally outside my jurisdiction as head of year and outside the jurisdiction of the school itself. That imposed a huge workload on teachers and led to major behavioural issues, which are the No. 1 and No. 3 issues in every single survey on why people are leaving the teaching profession. I therefore implore the Government to act on this. I hope that every school will now take action, look to those like the Michaela school and deliver a smartphone-free education.