Dear Councillor James Dalgleish and all members of Edinburgh’s Education, Children and Families Committee

We ask that you urgently pause your Interim Integrated Impact Assessment for a ban on smartphones in primary schools and return to consultation, as your process failed to put forward the option of banning smartphones from the premises of primary schools.

In September 2025, many of us were delighted to see headlines such as “Edinburgh to ban mobile phones in all primary schools” (heraldscotland.com/news/25437503.edinburgh-ban-mob...)

However, we have realised that the 4 options considered by the Education, Children and Families Committee did not include the option to ‘ban smartphones from the premises of primary schools’. This, we believe, is a failure of process and a missed opportunity to truly consult on how young children can be better protected from the myriad harms caused by smartphones.

Part of this failure is due to not distinguishing between internet connected smartphones, which contain apps, algorithms and forward and backward facing cameras, and basic flip phones. These two products are manifestly not the same. Whilst it might be understandable for older primary school children to carry a non-internet connected phone to school, such as a Nokia 105 or Samsung E1200, they should not be bringing smartphones onto the school premises. To give just three reasons why:

1 - Smartphones are addictive. As a teacher said to you in your meeting in September “it’s as if we are trying to teach math in a casino full of cocaine”. Another teacher said “They (pupils) can’t fight the neurological compulsion to check their phone to get that dopamine hit” (theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2025/09/ban-on-mobiles-... )

Primary school children need to be protected from addictive products. For this reason, schools should not be allowing them on the premises and, by storing them, tacitly suggest this is acceptable. We don’t store cocaine for pupils, only to return it at the end of the school day.

2 - Smartphones may contain harmful and distressing content. As was seen with the mass sharing event of Charlie Kirk’s murder, millions of children were exposed to a video of violent murder, including primary school children. This could happen at the school gates or on public transport to school, for example. Schools should therefore be setting a standard whereby children, including those whose parents have chosen to not give them smartphones, are better protected from seeing harmful content, whether that be violence, pornography or animal cruelty, for example.

3 - Smartphones facilitate the sharing of compromising images. With their advanced cameras, smartphones allow children to send images of themselves to others. This exposes them to potential severe harm, from grooming, sextortion, sexting each other and cyber bullying. By storing smartphones for primary school children, schools are literally taking care of devices that may contain images of child sexual abuse, and then giving those same devices back.

These are many more potential smartphone harms but the above are sufficient to make the case that this matter be urgently revisited. It is relatively straightforward for primary schools to take the step of truly banning smartphones from the premises and, as your 4th November report acknowledges, 69 out of 72 primary schools already have some form of ban in place. What many are looking for is stronger, comprehensive leadership to take that extra step.

Finally, returning to the consultation stage needs to happen because we believe that the word “ban” has not been used correctly by the Committee and has been misreported by the media. This has led to sections of the population being misled. The phrase “Primary School Ban” has been used repeatedly but, to most people, a ban means that the item cannot be brought onto the premises. In the everyday use of the word, from someone being banned from taking part in an event, such as a football match, to the issue at hand, an item being banned from school, the meaning is clear.

Is there any other example of an item being banned from schools where the meaning is ‘the item can still be brought onto the school premises’?

This is not just a matter for Edinburgh, though this letter is hugely concerned for the wellbeing of children in that amazing city. This matters for the whole of Scotland, for the UK and, in fact, children across the world. The harm being done to children by smartphones is a global issue and where a capital city such as Edinburgh goes, others may follow. You could be a leading light in the fight to reclaim childhood and properly ban smartphones from primary schools.

You must, at the very least, allow this option to be consulted on.

Yours sincerely,