Teen calls for phone ban in all UK schools after she saw beheading videos in Year 7

A teenager is calling for a ban on phones in schools after she was exposed to disturbing videos from year 7.

Flossie McShea, now 17, had graphic videos of a shooting, a beheading and extreme pornography sent to her during the school day.

She has joined two fathers, Will Orr-Ewing and Pete Montgomery, in their claim for a judicial review seeking a complete ban on smartphones in schools.

Flossie, a budding singer from Devon, believes smartphones should be out of schools for good and that the Department for Education has failed her and other children.

She said that using smartphones had ‘completely changed my life from year 7 onwards’.

‘I was exposed to pornography and violent videos, like beheading videos. I was sent a video of two young children who had found a gun and one of them accidentally shot the other one.

‘I had to go home. There were a lot of incidents like that and a lot of my friends had the same experiences.

‘All of this really happens at school because you can see live reactions. We’re all gathered in this place, so people feel it’s much more appealing to share this stuff online when you can get a reaction from 30 kids in the classroom.

‘I think if I hadn’t had a phone, and if we didn’t have phones in school, I wouldn’t have been exposed to things that I would not want to be exposed to.’

Flossie’s school has since brought in a complete ban on smartphones and she has already noticed the positive impact.

She said: ‘The other day I got on the school bus and a group of year 7s were laughing and chatting together. I felt so happy for them.

‘We never had that because we were just always looking down and scrolling.’

But Flossie isn’t the only student who has been shown explicit content in schools.

Mother of three, Katie Moore, from Northampton, is joining the legal action against the government after her daughter told her she had been shown sexually explicit images in school changing rooms.

In one disturbing incident, she was shown a video of men masturbating, which Mrs Moore called ‘devastating’.

‘It’s been exhausting as a parent, bringing up a teenager in a world that is so driven around pushing us to technology and being reliant on these technologies.’

To try and protect her daughter, she delayed giving her a phone but eventually gave in to pressure when all her friends had one.

In July, Mr Orr-Ewing and Mr Montgomery wrote to the education secretary, Bridget Philipson, to say they planned to challenge a mandatory school phone ban not being included in safeguarding guidance.

As part of the process, they have set up an organisation called Generation Alpha CIC.

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.

The majority of secondary schools (79%) surveyed allowed pupils to bring phones in, but said it must stay out of sight and not be used. Only 3.5% said pupils were not allowed to bring phones to school.

But Mrs Moore believes these current ‘out of sight policies’ are not enough to protect children and instead thinks a complete statutory ban is the only option.

Mr Montgomery and Mr Orr-Ewing made freedom of information requests in July that found, in one school, 55 social-media related safeguarding incidents were passed onto social services. 17 of these were referred to the police.

‘It should be the easiest decision in the world for the Government to take, but they haven’t taken it, so we have no other option but to go to court,’ said Mr Montgomery.

Sarah Hannafin, head of policy at the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), told Metro: ‘NAHT supports a ban on the use of mobile phones by pupils during the school day.

‘While phones and the digital world clearly offer advantages, there is a time and place for their use. As well as the safety issues which can arise, they can be an unwanted distraction during the school day.

‘Many schools already have restrictions on phones, but this often comes up at a cost, and we would encourage the government to help fund implementation of these measures.’

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