PARENTS claim children need them for safety, and teenagers would rather lose a limb than give them up. But mobile phones have no place in schools.

It shouldn’t be tricky. Pupils have sat in classrooms for centuries without mobiles and managed perfectly well, so why are they now seen as so vital?

I have never understood why they have ever been allowed, with the easy access to the internet - which I am sure pupils use to answer questions - and the distraction of incoming calls and social media. In some parts of the UK pupils have used them to film staged classroom incidents and posted them on the internet in an effort to embarrass and humiliate staff.

Apart from its function as a fast means of communication in a family crisis or to arrange pick up times - and there are always the school office staff who can help with such matters - there are no advantages to having a mobile phone in school.

In fact, I could never understand why pupils wanted the take phones to school particularly older pupils, who have saved for months to buy the latest model at a king’s ransom. The risk of losing it, breaking it, or having it stolen, would have put me off.

It shouldn't be hard to implement a ban. The secondary school my daughters once attended doesn’t allow them until sixth form, and even then pupils can only use them at lunchtime.

I applaud Government culture secretary Matt Hancock, who said that head teachers should ban mobiles in the classroom. As he says, they can impact on a pupil’s learning and achievement. He also linked social media with bullying among children.

From September, the French will be banning mobiles from primary, junior and middle schools. I think the ban should go further. It’s when children are older, in their early teens, that the real problems linked to social media kick in. It’s then that pupils become obsessed with their phones. And it’s then that image-related issues come to the fore, and pupils become more interested in how Facebook likes than what they score in their maths exam.

However vital they believe them to be, pupils of any age should be able to handle life without mobile phones. They may find that, later in life, phones are not allowed in the workplace. Some employers insist on phones being turned off, or even confiscated. In one job, my youngest daughter had to hand in her phone at the beginning of her shift.

I’d hate to be a teacher in a class filled with children whose minds were clearly elsewhere. And that happens with youngsters with mobile phones. Whether they are flashing up images or silently vibrating in pockets, they are a major distraction. I know how hard it is to get the attention of my own mobile-addicted children, and many a time I have snatched away their phones in frustration.

In UK schools, the tide appears to be turning. The chief inspector of Ofsted Amanda Spielman said last month that schools that ban mobile phones will get full backing from the education regulator. She believes the arguments for having phones in schools are ‘dubious at best’ and phones make life ‘miserable’ for teachers.

More and more secondary schools across the UK are introducing bans on mobile phones. This is great news. It’s a relatively simple rule to impose. Everyone benefits. So why has it taken so long?