Students at Notre Dame High School in Sheffield will soon be enabled to use their personal mobile devices - including mobile phones - in the classroom and around the school. This radical move is the result of recognising that mobile devices have a role to play in the modern curriculum, says Paul Haigh, Notre Dame’s assistant head teacher, with a responsibility for specialisms and innovation.
“Pupils are using a whole range of devices that can be used on the internet - mobile phones, gaming devices, MP3 players," he says. There’s a huge untapped resource staring us in the face.”
He adds that many pupils now use their own laptops and netbooks in schools, and it’s hard to know where a netbook ends and a large smartphone begins. In other words, there’s little logic in allowing pupils to use a netbook in school while banning mobile phones, many of which can access the internet, record sound and take digital photographs.