School Bans Phones After Pupil Received 9,000 Messages Overnight

A headteacher has opened up about the eye-opening moment a teacher at his school looked at a Year 6 pupil’s phone – only to find they’d received 9,000 messages overnight. Simon Botten, executive headteacher of two primary schools in Bristol, one of which is Blackhorse Primary School, said the pupil had left their phone in a box in the teacher’s cupboard overnight. (Children are currently allowed to take phones to Blackhorse and hand them in when they get there.) When the teacher picked up the phone the following day, and the screen briefly lit up, they saw a notification of 9,000 missed messages from the Year 6 pupil WhatsApp group. In a blog post , Botten said he has spent almost two decades watching a “technological phenomenon unfold slowly”. “At first it was imperceptible: the