Devices & Uniform

At West Midlands Education and Skills, we have a duty to support our students wellbeing and believe that addiction to devices is a serious concern.

As device users ourselves, we understand that carrying a mobile phone when travelling is useful and don’t want to ban devices from our school site as we are seeing in some countries across the world.  We also recognise the usefulness of devices for learning.  However, we do believe that there are negatives to using devices in lessons such as:

• It distracts you from focusing on your learning.  A study showed that even if students weren’t actively using their phone, simply having it next to them to be able to see notifications and touch it distracted them. We want our students to concentrate.
• Anxiety is heightened by phones and we have experienced many students who have been annoyed, frustrated and impatient when they can’t use their phones due to charge or signal issues thus leaving them unable to learn.  We want our students to be calm and able to learn.
• Phone messages and notifications disrupt studying, causing information to be forgotten.  This is because distractions lead to cognitive overload, blocking the transfer of information from the working memory to the long-term memory.  We want students to remember what we teach them.
• FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is experienced by students who are heavy device users.  This compulsive need to know what others are doing can lead to lower overall mood, increased anxiety, a distraction from the current moment and a higher likelihood of checking phones.  We want to support our students’ wellbeing.
• Phones can distort reality, causing stress and promoting a fear of failure.  So much of the content that we see on social media is a distortion of real-life; inaccurate assumptions and unfair standards can be unhelpful.  We want our students to have a break from unhealthy comparisons.
• Phones harm sleep quality and quantity.  Almost all of our students suffer with sleep disorders.  We know that the use of devices is a major factor in sleep disruption.  We want to show students that they can cope for periods of time without their devices and that putting them away is possible.

Because of this, we have devised a simple policy for devices in school, which follows a survey of parent and staff requests and further discussion with students.

Students must keep their device out of sight and must ensure that they are not touched for any reason during learning time.  Students are allowed to use devices during their breaks.  We are providing zip wallets for the students to leave their devices safely on their desks.  After listening to students’ requests, we have shortened the length of lessons and increased the number of breaks.

Failure to follow any school policy will trigger the Disciplinary Procedure (see Behaviour Policy).

We do not have a uniform and allow our students to choose their clothing for school, in order to support the number of students that we have who have sensory needs. 

Students are allowed to wear their own clothes as long as they are appropriate, for example, not too short or revealing; non-offensive, for example no offensive slogans or clothing which reveals underwear; and are suitable for physical activity, for example, not sliders, flip flops or heels. Students are asked not to wear hats or caps during learning time.