French-speaking schools introduce smartphone bans for new academic year

French-speaking schools are enforcing smartphone bans this year for all pupils, from nursery school to the end of secondary school - but the measure is being applied differently depending on the school.

Smartphones and other connected devices - such as tablets and smartwatches - are now prohibited for recreational use, including in the playground and on school trips. Connected devices can, however, be used for educational purposes.

The ban is expected to especially help teachers, some of whom say they are facing "a form of unfair competition" for attention from pupils.

Some schools had already imposed bans before the official decree was implemented for the start of this new school year.

The decree stipulates that each school must specify the practical details of the ban in its internal regulations, meaning the ban’s application can vary depending on the school or the age of the children or teenagers.

In some schools, for example, students will be allowed to keep their smartphones with them, but they must be switched off or set to silent mode. In other schools, they will have to leave them in a specific place during the day.

At Athénée Royal Leonardo Da Vinci school in Anderlecht, posters remind pupils that the use of smartphones is prohibited. They were already banned during lessons, but staff noticed that students used them excessively during breaks instead of socialising.

“Unfortunately, it looked like a lot of lonely people immersed in their phones, with little social contact,” said Stéphane Nelissen, the school's headmaster.

“[The ban] will force pupils to interact more, to form bonds and make contact with each other.”

Here, students who violate the ban will have their phone confiscated and stored in an electronically locked pouch until the end of the school day.

At the Institut des Filles de Marie in Saint Gilles, staff also noticed that excessive smartphone use during breaks was affecting students’ ability to not only socialise, but even use the bathroom, as students would lock themselves in the toilets to secretly use their phones.

From now on, pupils will have to hand in their smartphones in the morning and will get them back at the end of the day.

“There were no more queues in front of the toilets to hide and use their phones, and we were less repressive,” said Johann Dizant, the school's headmaster.

Bruno Humbeek, educational psychologist at UMons, said the new rules did not demonise the use of connected devices, which can still be used for educational purposes.

“The smartphone itself is not a problem – it’s the recreational use of the smartphone that is prohibited,” he said.

“It's really important to make this distinction because smartphones have only become problematic because they have been taken over by companies that have turned human attention into a commercial commodity, and so they have managed to capture our attention all the time.

"Obviously, in terms of learning, the effects are disastrous because attention is one of the most important drivers of learning. Smartphones are very useful in many aspects of life, but they should be used sensibly and reasonably."

Humbeek believes the bans will benefit teachers, too.

“It's very difficult for them to keep their students' attention all the time,” Humbeek said.

“Until now, they’ve been faced with an attention-grabber that achieved results much more easily than they did. I think [the ban] was simply an urgent necessity. We live in a society that must, at some point, encourage disconnected spaces, not just in schools.”