Coten End Primary School, Warwick
At Coten End primary school in Warwickshire parents are asked to sign a smartphone agreement, encouraging them to delay giving their children smartphones until at least aged 14 or to restrict usage at home if they do have a personal device. This has led to a dramatic fall in safeguarding and behavioural issues.
Coten End is part of the Stowe Valley MAT with 649 pupils aged 4-11. 9.4% of pupils are eligible for free school meals. In September 2023 they introduced a parent smartphone agreement to address the growing number of safeguarding issues arising from children’s smartphone use at home spilling over into school.​
The problem
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In 2022-23 Key Stage 2 staff (especially in years 5 and 6) were dealing with smartphone-related problems on a daily basis. A growing number of children needed counselling or social support for serious situations enabled by smartphones, including:
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Inappropriate sexualised behavior.
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Racist or discriminatory language
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Bullying (including children telling other children to harm or kill themselves or someone else.)
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Internet browsing themes of self-harm and suicide.
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Non-consensual sharing of images, videos and personal information.
Incidents were largely occurring on WhatsApp, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, despite the minimum age requirement of 13. ​
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Parent Smartphone Agreement
This was introduced in September 2023 recommending parents do not give their children a smartphone until summer term of year 6 at the earliest (this was amended to aged 14 in 2025). Parents who chose to give their child a smartphone are asked to accept full responsibility for all content stored on or sent from the phone and to follow a series of usage guidelines including no access to age-restricted social media platforms and no use after 5pm, before 8am or in private spaces such as the bathroom or a child’s bedroom.
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83% of parents signed the agreement, with 90.5% agreeing not to buy a smartphone until summer term of year 6 at the earliest (closer to 80% in Y5/6 and 100% in Y3/4). 9% of parents said their child was ready for a personal smartphone but agreed to follow the usage guidelines. <1% of parents indicated that they did not agree with the recommendations at all.​
Fewer safeguarding issues and happier children
Smartphone-related safeguarding and behavioral incidents fell from 1-2 per day to 2 in the whole of the 2023/24 academic year.*
Teachers across the school, especially in years 5 and 6 said children appear happier and are coming to school more ready to learn.
“We know that some children do have a personal smartphone but the agreement has put the onus on parents to monitor their use carefully because they know they are going against what the school has recommended.”
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“In the summer term we did see an increase in the number of year 6s with smartphones ahead of secondary school and safeguarding incidents among that cohort started to rise again. From our experience the majority of children who own a personal smartphone get involved in inappropriate behaviour online either as a victim or a perpetrator.”
Nick Williams, Headteacher, Coten End school​
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