'They learn to socialise' The school head who swears by a total ban

Vicki Dean, the principal of Tenbury High academy, says visitors to her secondary school in the Worcestershire countryside think its pupils appear less mature than others their age - because they are running about and playing, rather than sitting huddled around their phones.

- Richard Adams

"When I worked at my previous school, I still remember social time was like this," said Dean, mimicking holding a phone in front of her face. But Tenbury is different, with one of the toughest "phone-free" policies of any mainstream state secondary school in England, and Dean says that has influenced how her pupils act.

"Here, our children in year 8 are still playing chase and tag because they have nothing else to distract them. They want to play football, they are being creative, it's oldschool playing," Dean said.

"Visitors sometimes say 'your children seem immature,' but I don't think they are. I just think they are seeing them play.

"In rural settings, when children don't play when they get home in the evenings because they are geographically isolated, they need to learn to play and interact, and even what to do when they are bored. So we have to work on social time behaviour and what to do to keep entertained. We buy equipment and have lots of sports clubs to keep them busy. They are learning to socialise." Tenbury, part of the Ormiston academies trust, up until last year allowed pupils to use phones during "social time" before the bell for the start of school.

But Dean said even that interlude has now been stopped, so pupils have to hand in their phones as soon as they arrive.