12 Jun 2025
Hundreds of Harpenden parents have signed a petition calling for a blanket ban on smartphones for Year 7s in the town’s secondary schools.
The initiative is being driven by Harpenden Smartphone Free Childhood, the local group of what has swiftly become a national campaign.
It asks parents and carers whether they are concerned about the impact of smartphones on children and young people, and if so would they like Harpenden secondary schools to follow the lead of local primary schools and adopt smartphone policies that stop student access to smartphones during the school day?
Pupils attending primary schools in Harpenden have been told they will not be allowed to bring a smartphone into school from September.
Harpenden and District Primary Heads Consortium made the decision a year after their peers in St Albans called on a smartphone ban for children under 14.
At the time the Harpenden primary heads said: “This is the first stage in what we feel is an important step in the right direction. The local secondary schools support this and are continuing to look at the ways that they can further support this campaign in the future.”
Now a fresh push to change secondary attitudes is being led from the grassroots by Harpenden SFC, which has compiled an open letter to St George’s School, Sir John Lawes School, Roundwood Park School, Katherine Warington School, St Albans Girls School and other Harpenden catchment schools.
It says: “We are writing to request Harpenden secondary schools support the children and young people of Harpenden and their families, by ensuring that students do not have access to their phones throughout the school day.
“Current school practices of ‘not seen, not heard’ do not protect students from the harms of smartphones whilst at school. Given the Harpenden primary schools’ new smartphone-free policies, we ask that you consider building on this with your incoming Year 7 students in September 2025…
“Harpenden parents are being advised by primary schools not to provide smartphones to children until at least the age of 14. Over 950 Harpenden parents have signed the Smartphone Free Childhood Pledge. Current secondary school policies undermine this advice and increase pressure on students and parents to buy one…
“We know change is harder at secondary level but the incoming cohort of Year 7s will own significantly fewer smartphones between them and so now is the time to implement this change. Secondary schools are successfully introducing effective smartphone-free policies to protect their students and support parents who delay buying phones.”
Victoria Edgar, speaking on behalf of Harpenden SFC, said the petition was already doing well: “We are delighted by the outpouring of support that the open letter is generating. Over 450 signatures in the first two days is astonishing. We are grateful for the enthusiasm with which parents are sharing the letter within their own communities across Harpenden.”
She elaborated on the reasons behind the initiative: “On 14th May, the Consortium of Primary Schools in Harpenden and the surrounding villages agreed to ban smartphones from being brought into primary schools from September 2025. Our open letter asks the secondaries to take a similar position with the incoming Year 7s.
“This position has a great deal of support in Harpenden – parents want to make their own choices for their children regarding screens and internet access and don’t want to be pressured into giving smartphones too early. If the secondary schools build on the primary schools’ policy, the decision of smartphone ownership genuinely returns to individual families, where it should be.”
Harpenden parents can sign the petition here.
