Hello everyone! I’m Maxine and I’m a student at a secondary school in Manchester, where mobiles have recently been banned from the classroom, and we all find it very upsetting. Can you, as grownups, imagine having your mobile phone taken away while you’re at work? Probably not. 

My situation as a teenager is ever more difficult to imagine. I am, after all, a digital native! What does it mean? Well, I was almost born with a mobile phone; it is my umbilical cord to reality. I can’t live without it! Yet now, my school authorities decided to take it away from me. Why did they do it? It is not fair! That’s why I want to present to you today arguments in favour of using mobile phones at school, so that my school’s authorities hear me out. 

Having a mobile phone makes it easy for us, teenagers, to contact our parents, for our parents to reach us in an emergency, and generally, acts as a safety device while we are out and about. Parents can use a tracking app to know where we are. Not that I particularly like this, but it helps our parents to check where we are in case we get lost on our way from school, or we are not back home at an agreed time.

Of course, I don’t have to mention that having a mobile phone at hand at all times allows for easy access, via the internet, to vast quantities of information we may need during class activities. On school breaks, we need mobile phones for networking on social media and, of course, for games and entertainment. Teenagers today feel lost and helpless without a mobile phone, and are seen as social outcasts if they do not own one. We don’t want to feel like that. 

Another argument in favour of mobile phones is that allowing students to use them can have a great impact on reducing the school budget. It cuts the cost of supplying computers for classrooms if every student has his or her own personal tool that can do the job just as well. Using our phones, we can easily look up words in a dictionary, read online articles, or take an online quiz. And yes, occasionally, during breaks, check our e‑mails or social media updates. Is that wrong? 

Schools are designed to prepare students for the real world, so phones should be incorporated into lessons as a fundamental element of the curriculum. With rules in place, schools should teach pupils to use their phones sensibly and constructively. I strongly agree with what one of my teachers said that teenagers need to learn to self‑regulate. They're not being given the opportunity to do that if their phones are taken away at the start of the day. Taking our phones is like taking our freedom away!

I know that mobile phones continue to raise problems in the classroom. I admit it! I have texted my friends many times during a lesson, and this is inappropriate. I also know that a vast majority of schools across Europe do have restrictive mobile phone policies in place. However, the issue flagged by some teachers is that rules and sanctions are applied inconsistently, and that it isn't always clear whose responsibility it is to confiscate a phone or if teachers are legally allowed to do so. 

One argument against allowing phones as learning tools is that students get easily distracted, and use phone‑based activities as an opportunity to visit other sites when they should be using their phones for educational purposes. This is a big problem, because such behaviour is difficult to detect, and large amounts of time may be wasted as a result. 

Perhaps, the answer to the problem of phones in schools lies not in allowing us to use mobile phones or banning them, but rather in creating strict laws to stop web companies from using psychological tricks and techniques that make us all hooked and dependent on our phones?

You have heard arguments in favour of the ban from my teacher, who had a presentation before me, and now I have presented you with arguments against it. The time has come to consider both points of view and make an informed decision as to which side of the fence you stand on.