POLL OF THE DAY: Should phones be banned in schools? YOUR VERDICT

The plans are set to bring England in line with other countries with similar rules such as France, Italy and Portugal and will help improve consistency between schools.

Rather than a blanket law banning phones in schools, Keegan announced “guidance” for schools.

Headteachers will be able to choose between four different options, ranging from a total ban on phones on school premises to allowing teenagers to keep their phones on them so long as they “promise” that they won’t be used in lessons.

In an exclusive poll for GB News membership readers, an overwhelming majority of the 633 voters (95 per cent), said phones should be banned in schools while just five per cent thought they should not be banned.

Keegan said: “Schools are places for children to learn and mobile phones are, at a minimum, an unwanted distraction in the classroom.

“We are giving our hard-working teachers the tools to take action to help improve behaviour and to allow them to do what they do best – teach.”

Keegan later told GB News: “What we face is a problem of inconsistency. Some schools have already done this and some headteachers have reported that it's had a fantastic impact actually on behaviour and concentration and performance at school.

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“But we also know that some have not and we think it's probably about half and half have got an outright ban.

“What we want to do is have consistency in our schools, first of all to make sure that we empower headteachers to do this and secondly to make sure that it's throughout the day, without the phones coming out for breaks or for lunch, which some of them do today.

“It's to make sure that there's no phones in the school during the school day.”

Should phones be banned in schools? VOTE HERE