Smartphone-Free 2025

Year 7 Smartphone Free: September 2025

We wrote to families of Year 5 students in our feeder primary schools in June 2024 explaining that, from September 2025, students joining our Year 7 cohort and all future Year 7 cohorts, will not be permitted to bring smartphones or smart watches on to the school site for the duration of their time in Years 7 - 11 at The Misbourne.

The letter here includes a full explanation of our concerns about the detrimental impact of smartphones on children's safety, wellbeing and academic progress, and also sets out how we will implement this approach.

Students will be permitted to bring a basic phone to school with them for use on the way to and from school. Students will not be permitted to use these on the school site and they will be kept turned off in their school bag.

A list of acceptable basic phones can be found in this document. These are devices that:

1. Do not have access to any app stores

2. Do not have mobile internet which is capable of supporting social media sites

We will update the list of acceptable phones over time.  Please do not purchase any other phone with the intention of your child bringing it to school as these will not be permitted on site. If you would like to make a suggestion for a device which you believe meets these criteria, please email us on admin@themisbourne.co.uk. We will reply to you and either add the device to our list of acceptable devices or explain our reasons for not accepting that device.