01
Lead with families, not policy.
The letter is from the head to the parents. It is an invitation, not a rule. The school's job is to host the room, not to write the family's answer.
no. 01 For teachers and carers
The school side of the conversation.
Short answer. You don't need a new mobile phone policy for schools. You need a letter, a meeting, an assembly. The templates are below, free, take them.
A short toolkit for headteachers, form tutors and pastoral leads. Plus a section for the grandparents, aunts, uncles and foster carers who get asked their view and aren't sure what to say. We've read the DfE February 2024 guidance and the school-side coverage so you don't have to.
02
Pair the letter with a meeting.
An hour in the staff room with refreshments. Three families in the room makes a class. The single most useful preparation is sending the letter and the meeting invite together, on the same day.
03
Give parents the script.
Don't write the home conversation for them. Send them to the seven-moment script. The job is theirs; the rehearsal is ours.
04
Pick September or January.
Either: August letter to incoming Y7 for September, or autumn letter for January start. Mid-term is the worst time. A clean term-line gives families a beginning to point at.
no. 02 The letter
The letter to parents, two paragraphs from the head.
Copy this into school letterhead, swap the bracketed parts, sign as head. It runs to roughly 250 words. Many UK heads send a version of this letter in the last week of August to incoming Year 7 families. It works for a Year 6 letter too, with the closing sentence adjusted.
Letter to parents · Year 7 starters
Dear families,
[SCHOOL] is joining a growing group of UK schools encouraging incoming Year 7 families to consider a simple phone, rather than a smartphone, for the start of secondary. The Department for Education has, since February 2024, prohibited smartphone use across the school day. This letter goes one short step further: it asks you to consider whether your child needs to own a smartphone at all, yet.
We are not asking you to take away a phone you have already given your child. We are not setting a new rule. We are saying: many of you are quietly asking the question, almost all of you would prefer to wait if you knew other families were waiting too, and the easiest week to wait is the week three or four other families in your child's form do the same.
What we are committing to as a school:
- A 45-minute meeting in the staff room on [DATE], for any family considering this. No commitment, just the chance to be in a room with others having the same conversation.
- Sharing the free conversation script at knockphone.co.uk/switching-kit. No email required, no sign-up.
- The names of the basic phones we have seen used most often by current Year 7 and 8 pupils. The list this year leads with the Nokia 3210 (about £75) and the Nokia 235 (about £40), and there are four others worth knowing about. All are at knockphone.co.uk/best-simple-phones.
We are not selling anything. The school earns nothing on any of this. We are writing because almost every family is asking this privately and almost no school is hosting the meeting.
And one thing we'd like to say to the families who worry their child will be the only one. They won't. Several families in this year group have already let us know they're going the simple-phone route. The school will be saying so, calmly, at the parents meeting in [MONTH]. Nobody is starting this on their own.
Warm regards,
[HEAD], Headteacher
no. 03 The meeting
The 45-minute parents meeting, run sheet.
The aim is not to persuade anyone. The aim is to let three or four families realise they are not alone in the thought. Once they know that, the rest is theirs.
- 0–5 min Welcome and frame. "Thank you for coming. This isn't a sales pitch. The school has no stake in your phone decision. We are hosting this evening because over the last three years almost every family has asked one of us about it, and tonight is the easier version of that conversation."
- 5–15 min Five numbers. Read the five numbers from the research page aloud. They are at knockphone.co.uk/the-research. Don't add interpretation. Let the room sit with them.
- 15–25 min The five-minute parent voice. Invite two parents who have already done this (from the previous Y7 cohort) to talk for two minutes each. Not a panel; one practical paragraph. "What I expected, what actually happened, what I'd do differently."
- 25–40 min Open the floor. Take questions, but resist answering with school policy. Most useful response: "Has anyone else in the room been asked that?" Other families have lived answers; the school has only frameworks.
- 40–45 min Hand out the script. One printed copy of the conversation per family. No follow-up email, no chase. The parents have the rest.
no. 04 The assembly
The Year 5 or 6 assembly, an eight-minute script.
For the spring term, ahead of secondary transition. The assembly is not about what to do. It is about what phones are designed to do. Children understand this faster than adults expect.
[Hold up a Nokia 3210, or a similar basic phone.]
Today I want to talk to you about phones. Not about whether you use one. About what they do.
Most of you will get your first phone sometime in the next two or three years. By the time you are 12, almost everyone in your year will have one.
Phones do useful things. They let you ring home. They let you say "I'm running late". They tell you when the bus is coming.
Phones also do things that are designed to be hard to put down. Specifically, social media apps. Teams of adults are paid full-time to make sure you cannot stop scrolling. They are very good at their job. The grown-ups in this room cannot stop either.
[Pause.]
Here is the strange thing about phones. The phone in your hand for the next five years matters less than you might think. The phone in your friends' hands matters a lot. If your three best friends spent three hours on TikTok last night, you will spend three hours on TikTok tonight too. That is the bit that catches you.
So when your parents say "let's wait", they are not being old. They are not punishing you. They are trying to make sure your year group doesn't get caught all at once.
The phone you might get instead, the one that does calls and texts, is not a worse phone. It is a different phone. It has a torch. It has games. It lasts three days on one charge. It is exactly what you need for walking home and for asking if you can stay at someone's.
If your friend has an iPhone and you have a Nokia, the friendship is not over. The friendship is in the room you are about to walk into, not in the chat group.
In a few weeks your parents will get a letter from us about this. We wanted you to hear it from us first. Any parent who chooses the simple phone is doing the kind thing, not the strict thing. That is all I came to say.
[Sit down.]
A school can't tell a family what to do. What it can do is host one meeting and let four families discover they were all asking the same question. That is usually when a form goes calm.
no. 05 Objections
Eight objections, eight calm replies.
The same parent questions come up at almost every school. Here are the eight we have heard most often, with the reply that has worked in actual rooms.
If they say
"Other schools don't do this. Why are you?"
The reply
Many UK heads who have introduced a phone-free school day report that the parent body welcomed it. The Department for Education's February 2024 guidance prohibits smartphones across the school day. We are not first, and we are not last. We are choosing to do the announcement properly.
If they say
"My child has a medical reason. Diabetes monitoring, hearing aids, an Apple Watch ECG."
The reply
A medical exemption is a normal exemption. Email the head of year and we'll add it to the file. The simple-phone position is a default, not a rule.
Don't say: "Have you tried doing it without the phone?"
If they say
"What if my child needs to ring me in an emergency on the way home?"
The reply
Every basic phone on the recommended list rings, texts, and has a three-day battery. The walk-home use case is the simple-phone use case. The smartphone is the thing that makes the walk home distracting, not safe.
If they say
"We've already given them an iPhone."
The reply
Nothing in this letter asks you to take anything away. It is about the families coming up into Year 7, where the decision is still live. If you would like to talk about stepping back from a smartphone your child already has, we will introduce you to families in the school who have, and to the parent script.
If they say
"We don't want our child left out of the year-group chat."
The reply
There may not be a single year-group chat for the families who choose to wait. If three or four families per form go simple together, the friendships rebuild around the playground, the after-school club, and the walk home. The biggest predictor of whether week one feels lonely is whether anyone else's family does it at the same time. That is exactly why this letter is going to the whole year at once.
If they say
"Isn't a simple phone just an expensive choice for parents who can afford it?"
The reply
It is the cheaper option. The basic phones on the recommended list are £24 to £89. The cheapest sensible smartphone with parental controls is around £170. A SIM on a child plan is £6 to £9 a month. A simple-phone household saves around £600 over two years against a mid-range iPhone on contract.
If they say
"I don't trust schools to police phones."
The reply
Nor should you. This is not a school policy. It is a school-convened conversation. The school's role is to host the parents' meeting and write the letter. The decision is the family's. The enforcement, if there is any, is at home.
If they say
"Won't my child fall behind on the apps they need for school?"
The reply
Every Year-7 system this school uses runs on a tablet at home or on a parent's phone. Show My Homework, ClassCharts, ParentPay, Microsoft Teams for Education all work on either. If a teacher introduces an app that genuinely requires a child's own smartphone, email the head of year and we will look at it. We have not had to so far.
no. 06 The SLT one-pager
The SLT one-pager, for the head and chair of governors.
Designed to be read in under three minutes, before a meeting. Print, sign, table.
Proposal in one line
A voluntary simple-phone position for incoming Year 7 families, communicated by letter and convened in a 45-minute parents meeting before September. No new policy, no new tech, no curriculum time.
What we are doing
- A letter from the head to incoming Y7 families, August 2026.
- A 45-minute parents meeting in the staff room, last week of August.
- An assembly for Year 5 and Year 6, spring term.
What it costs
Zero. No licence, no app, no curriculum time. Total staff cost: the head's hour to write and sign the letter, and the head of year's hour to host the meeting.
Risk if we do
Some families with an existing smartphone may read the letter as criticism. The wording mitigates this directly: "We are not asking you to take away a phone you have already given your child." Expect one sharp reply per year group. Usually a regret, occasionally a complaint.
Risk if we don't
The incoming Y7 cohort arrives as the noisiest phone-first year group the school has seen, with the pastoral overhead that implies. The chance to coordinate families at the right moment passes.
DfE position
The Department for Education's February 2024 guidance prohibits smartphone use across the school day. This proposal supports that policy by helping families avoid smartphone ownership in the first place, where they wish to. It does not contradict, expand or duplicate the DfE position.
Signatures recommended before sending
- Headteacher.
- Head of year for incoming Y7.
- Chair of governors, if your governance norms expect it.
If asked by press
A short line that has worked: "We are not banning anything. We are encouraging a conversation almost every family is having privately. Around 84% of UK parents whose child does not yet have a smartphone support a school-day ban (Parentkind, 2025). We are giving that majority a way to act."
no. 07 School FAQ
A few questions schools ask.
Do we need governor approval before sending the letter?
The letter we link below is from the head, not a policy change. It encourages a parent decision; it does not change school rules. Most heads send a similar letter under their delegated communication authority. If your governing body would prefer to see it first, the SLT one-pager below is the briefing.
What if some families react badly?
Most don't. The families who already gave their child a smartphone often read the letter as criticism, so the wording matters. The template explicitly says, 'We are not asking you to take away a phone you already have.' We have a paragraph for the sharp-reply case in the objections list below.
How does this fit the DfE February 2024 guidance?
The DfE guidance prohibits smartphone use across the school day. It does not require schools to take a position on ownership. This kit takes the next short step: convene the parents who would rather their child not own a smartphone yet, and help them coordinate. It works alongside the DfE position, not against it.
What does the school have to do?
Three things. Send the letter to incoming Year 7 families in the August before they arrive. Host a 45-minute meeting in the staff room. Run the Year 5 or 6 assembly in the spring term. Nothing else is needed. No app, no licence, no new policy.
Can we share this with our parent-governor group or feeder primary?
Yes. The page and the PDF are free to share. There is no email gate. The whole site is free; we earn a small affiliate commission only if a family later buys a phone through one of our retailer links. Schools never see those links.
no. 08 For grandparents, aunts, uncles and carers
The supporting role, in three rules.
If you are reading this because someone in your family has asked your view, and you weren't quite sure what to say, here is the short version. The parent has thought about this longer than you have. Your job is to back them, not to umpire them.
01
Listen first. Promise to back the call.
The sentence that has worked, more than any other, from grandparents: "Whatever you decide, I'll support it. Tell me what would be useful." Thirty seconds. Changes everything.
02
Don't undercut the parent in front of the child.
"Your mum's being silly, look what I got you" undoes a year of conversation. If you want to give a gift, ask first. A torch, a Nintendo, a Walkman, a battered annual: all welcome. A smartphone for the child to use at your house: please don't.
03
Be the relative who learns the system.
If the family goes simple, offer to be the relative who buys the Nokia or the SIM for the birthday. If they go iPhone, offer to learn Apple Screen Time alongside the parent. Both are useful. Both turn an opinion into a thing you can do.
I'm a grandparent and the parents seem unsure. Can I help?
The most useful sentence a grandparent can offer is, 'Whatever you decide, I'll support it.' Then ask which way they're leaning. If they go simple, offer to be the relative who buys the Nokia for the birthday. If they go iPhone, offer to learn Screen Time alongside them. Picking a side, especially in front of the child, undoes a year of careful conversation in twenty seconds.
I'm an aunt or uncle. The child stays at my house some weekends.
Don't buy a smartphone 'for them to use at our house'. It becomes the whole weekend. If the family is going simple, the weekend at yours should look the same: walks, board games, a Nintendo with you in the room. Ask the parents what they would like the house rule to be. Then keep it.
I'm a foster carer or kinship carer. The placement is settled. What do other carers do?
In the published guidance on phones for children in care, the typical recommendation is the simplest sensible phone, with the child's social worker copied on the decision. A Nokia 235 (about £40) with a Smarty SIM (£6 a month) covers calls and texts, leaves a paper trail you can show in reviews, and avoids the school-day issues that pre-paid smartphones tend to bring.
I'm a stepparent. I want to back the resident parent without overstepping.
The line that has worked most often: 'You've thought about this for longer than I have. I'll back the call you make. Tell me what would be useful.' That sentence keeps the trust intact and gives you something to do.
I'm a family friend. The parent has asked my opinion.
Send them this site and the conversation script at /switching-kit. Don't deliver the lecture yourself. The parent doesn't want a verdict from you. They want a reason to trust the decision they're already half-leaning toward.
no. 09 Get in touch
If you're a school or carer who would like a hand drafting your letter, write to us.
hello@knockphone.co.uk. The editor reads every email. We don't charge schools for anything. We won't put your school's name on a website without your permission.
