Mobile phone guidance

Mobile phone guidance for the Thamesmead Community (from Sept 2026)

We want Thamesmead School to be an environment where our students can thrive in their development and learning, and this means becoming a phone-free environment. This is the right time to review our existing practices on phones and other personal and wearable technologies in school. There is increasing evidence of the impact smartphones can have on the concentration, wellbeing and development of young people. The Government has also announced plans to introduce restrictions on access to certain social media platforms for under-16s from Spring 2027. In addition, the Department for Education’s statutory guidance now states that schools should operate as mobile phone-free environments by default. As a result, we believe this is the right time to strengthen our approach to phones and wearable technology within school.

Our students use Yondr pouches to secure their phone whilst on site.

How the Pouches Work

Each student will be assigned a Yondr pouch – a secure, lockable case for storing personal devices. Students are responsible for bringing their pouch to and from school each day and keeping it in good condition.

• Upon arrival: Students switch off all smart technology including their mobile phones and smart watches, place all devices in the pouch, and lock the pouch as they enter the school site. This is checked during tutor-time.
• During the day: Students keep the locked pouch in their school bag or locker.
• At dismissal: Students unlock pouches at designated stations to retrieve their devices.

This process is quick, simple, and will be supervised by staff as part of our daily routine.

Medical needs

If there is a genuine medical need why a student must be able to access their phone in the day please let us know and we will work with families to issue an accessible pouch or appropriate adjustment to our policy. Examples would be a student who is diabetic and needs to use their phone to monitor their levels throughout the day or a student who is hearing impaired and needs to use their phone to control any hearing devices they use to help them hear.

Pouch purchase

The pouch will be the student’s property for use each day at school. Parents will need to purchase a pouch for each child who is bringing a phone to school. The cost is £16 and is payable via Scopay.

Students who do not have phones

We are aware that there may be some students who do not have mobile phones or do not bring a phone to school. To ensure that they are not issued pouches, and not subject to daily checks please inform us of this using the form here.

The new Mobile Phone Policy is on our website here for you to read. Please note that we have changed our process of confiscating phones in line with this. We will no longer be confiscating phones overnight (unless this is a repeated issue), but we will expect parents to come to school to collect the phone and will not return them to students.