Digital safeguarding incidents in schools with and without smartphone policies

Background. Smartphones/social media have been hailed as offering educational benefits, butgrowing concerns highlight negative effects on learning and wellbeing. Some countries enforceschool phone bans, while others (e.g., England), have guidance promoting “phone-freeenvironments” but no legal mandate. There is limited evidence on the benefits of such policies,including whether they promote safeguarding.Methods. We used Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to investigate the relationshipbetween smartphone policies and digital safeguarding incidents in 114 schools in England(>90,000 pupils). We examined the prevalence and content of phone policies during the2023/24 academic year and digital incident reporting.Results. Only 53% (60/114) of schools had a phone policy. Policy content varied significantly,with inconsistent use of “ban” terminology. Digital safeguarding incidents made up only 4.9%(4183/85,540) of all incidents but varied substantially (>10% in 36/114 schools; >25% in 9),suggesting inconsistent reporting. Schools with policies, regardless of restrictiveness, reportedmore digital incidents. Schools with restrictive policies were more likely to refer incidents andreported more school-based incidents, although most still occurred outside school.Conclusions. Safeguarding incidents involving smartphones or social media are occurring inschools throughout England. Schools with phone policies were more likely to report digitalsafeguarding incidents, suggesting an association between policy presence and reporting. Vastvariation in policy content and inconsistent “ban” rhetoric undermine the potential for effectivesafeguarding. These findings underscore the need for standardised definitions of digital risks,and consistent policy approaches.