Rita Saffioti says are state schools welcome to follow in Hale’s footsteps on mobile phone restrictions

Deputy Premier Rita Saffioti says public schools are welcome to go a step further than baseline mobile phone rules and follow Hale School’s lead with more restrictions. This year the Perth private boys’ school trialled the policy for pre-primary to Year 7 students asking parents not to give their sons a smartphone or smartwatch and ban them from using social media in what is believed to be a nation-first. Families were informed the policy would be expanded to include Year 8 students in 2026 by Hale Principal Dean Dell’Oro on Wednesday. According to Mr Dell’Oro other schools have reached out to the school to enquire about the policy. Whether the rules would be considered for public schools was put to Ms Saffioti on Thursday morning who left it up to individual schools if they wanted to go beyond the current directive. “We’ve already got rules across the schools in relation to mobile phones, in particular on primary schools, particular bans on bringing them into classrooms and how they’re handled at school, we’ve already rolled out a series of rules across the state,” she said. “The advice from the Minister of Education I spoke to this morning is that if schools want to go beyond that, they’re welcome to and that may be a decision for the local school community. “I will continue to monitor this situation and see what has been the impact of those bans, and also, as I said, the schools are able to also make decisions that actually go further in relation to those bans.” According to Mr Dell-Oro, parents responded overwhelmingly positively to the trial with 93 per cent in favour of expanding it to Year 8. Currently, public high school students may bring their mobile phone with them to school but they must be switched off and be out of sight from when students arrive at school to when the school day ends. Primary school students may not have a mobile phone in their possession while at school. It is up to principals and school staff to determine how the policy is implemented.