Tuesday August 25th 2026
Secondary pupils in East Lothian have been given their own laptops. Pictured: Knox Academy, in Haddington, East Lothian
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Marie Sharp
A mobile phone ban in classrooms across East Lothian has been given the go-ahead.
Secondary students across the county will have to place their devices on pouches during lessons when the new system is introduced in October after it was backed by councillors at a meeting today.
They also agreed to ban all Primary One to Primary Three pupils from bringing phones to school while older primary school aged children will have to put them in a lock box during lessons.
Head of education Nicola McDowell told a meeting of full council that they had decided not to ban all primary pupils from having phones at school after a consultation many using them to keep in contact on the way to and from school and when attending after school clubs.
She told the meeting: “Most P1 to P3 pupils do not own a mobile but in P4 to P7 around 50 per cent own one and about half of them bring them to school.
“They said they needed to use it on the way to and from school and making an exception to the rules for so many would have been quite hard to manage.”
The new policy which has been named mobile free learning, rather than a ban, comes after East Lothian Council was able to roll out personal laptops to every secondary child and reduce the ratio of shared laptops in primary schools to one per two pupils.
Surveys were carried out among pupils of all ages, teachers and parents and carers to gather views on mobile phone use day to day.
It found around 15 per cent of P1 to P3 children own a mobile phone rising to 45 per cent with older primary school children with around half of them bringing them to school every day.
In secondary schools 98 per cent of students owned mobile phones and brought them to school although the survey said more than 80 per cent said they never of rarely used their phone in class.
The report revealed Dunbar Grammar has been piloting a pouch system which requires students to ‘hang up’ their phones in class which could be rolled out at a cost of £4,725, with the cost of lockable boxes for primary school estimated just over £8,000.
Councillor Colin Yorkston, a former Edinburgh secondary school teacher, said he welcomed the new policy having experienced issues with pupils in schools in the past.
He told the meeting: “I have had first hand experience of the addictive nature and behaviour some students have for their phones, they just cannot put them down. The impact it has on their concentration in classes. I think this is going to give them freedom from their phones in classes.”
Councillors unanimously voted to support the new policy being rolled out across schools.
Tweet Share on Facebook
