The mother of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey has said a school phone ban would really have helped her daughter, as she launches a campaign for a statutory ban in schools.
Esther Ghey is calling on the Government to provide funding to schools for pouches to lock phones in during the school day, which she said has been successful for Brianna’s old school – Birchwood Community High school in Warrington.
“For me, it would have really helped Brianna,” Ms Ghey told the PA news agency. “It would have helped her to focus on her school work.
“She wouldn’t have been getting in to so much trouble because all of the issues were around the phone use. She would have had a much better chance in life.
“She would have been able to focus on her education. She would have been able to make friends with her peers. And I think that schools, parents and children need support from Government, because this issue is just too big for anybody to handle on their own.”
During the three years Brianna was at Birchwood, there were 120 safeguarding logs and 116 behaviour logs around her phone use, Ms Ghey said.
“These ranged from Brianna being at risk of child sexual exploitation, to what she was accessing online, that was encouraging her to self harm and to have an eating disorder,” she said.
“As a parent, I really felt like I was failing,” Ms Ghey added. “I didn’t know what to do.”
Under the former Conservative government, schools were issued non-statutory guidance intending to stop the use of phones during the school day.
Ms Ghey has launched an open letter to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer calling for a statutory ban that would see pupils unable to access their phones for the entire school day, unless they are exempt for medical or accessibility reasons.
The letter has been signed by several high-profile figures, including actress Kate Winslet, actor Stephen Graham, and several MPs.
In the system Birchwood uses, phones are locked in pouches on arrival at school, which is then carried around by the student rather than locked in another location.
Ms Ghey said the school also has detection measures to ensure children are not bringing in a second phone, and uses Velcro pouches for children with health conditions or who are young carers.
“The funding needs to be in place, because I’ve spoken to headteachers, and they’ve said sometimes it’s a choice between a new classroom assistant or the pouches, and headteachers shouldn’t have to make that choice,” Ms Ghey said.
A survey by the Children’s Commissioner earlier this year found 90% of secondary schools and 99.8% of primary schools already have policies in place to stop the use of phones during the school day.
However, the survey found around 10% of secondary schools allowed pupils to use their phones at some point during the school day.
Birchwood introduced pouches to lock phones in last September. Headteacher Emma Mills has previously said the move has reduced pupils’ stress levels.
Technology Secretary Peter Kyle has previously said children could face a limit on using social media apps. Sky reported a two-hour cap per platform is being considered.
Asked about this, Ms Ghey said: “My thoughts on the idea currently is that under-16s shouldn’t be on social media full stop. There’s so much harmful content on there.
“And I think that’s the issue with schools, because there’s so many parents that are completely locking down phone or that are choosing to give the children brick phones so they can’t access social media, but when they go to secondary school they’re opened up to a world of harms because all the children have phones.”
A ban in schools is just “one part of the puzzle” in the approach to children’s phone and social media usage, she added.
Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe, both 15 at the time, lured Brianna to Culcheth Linear Park in Warrington where the 16-year-old was fatally stabbed 28 times with a hunting knife in February 2023.
Jenkinson was sentenced at Manchester Crown Court in December 2023 to a minimum sentence of 22 years in prison, and Ratcliffe to a minimum term of 20 years.
