Esther Ghey: Brianna was addicted to her phone – this is why they should be banned in the classroom
As a child, Brianna Ghey was going out, happy and bubble.
“He’s always got into everything, Est his mother Esther said. “He was the life and spirit of every room, you always knew if Brianna was there.”
Nevertheless, two years after being killed by two young people, 14 years old, when he began to have a “great negative impact on his smartphone on an addiction life, his behavior began to change to a great extent.
In addition to getting into trouble at school, Brianna, who was transsexual, suffered with mental health, eating disorder and damaged himself, and Ms. Ghey realized how much harmful content she had consumed after her death.
In a campaign that received support from high -profile figures such as actor Kate Winslet, actor Stephen Graham and several deputies, he launched an open letter calling a legal ban in schools in schools.
“We did all the right things,” he said Independent. “We put parent checks on WiFi and his phone. When I was young, I made checks on his phone and took him out at night.
“When he got older, he was like a diary and didn’t want to deliver. We had a lot of discussion, we would have arguments where we would punch the wall because he didn’t want to deliver his phone.
“It was very difficult and I felt completely lost as a parent,” he said.
In February 2023, at that time, 16 -year -old Brianna was drawn to the linear Park in Warrington, where the Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe, both of which were 15, were stabbed to a fatally stabbed with a hunting knife.
After the murder, Ms. Ghey asked for information about her daughter’s phone use from Brianna’s old school – Birchwood Community High School – her daughter.
It turned out that for three years when Brianna was in Birchwood, teachers made 120 protective logs and 116 behavioral recording.
“They encouraged him to restrict his food from the risk of Brianna’s sexual exploitation to the areas of eating disorder.
“The diaries of behavior were changing from looking at the phone under the table, refusing to leave his phone and shooting in the toilets for his tiktok content.
“It was very difficult, I didn’t know how to manage it,” he said. “I worked closely with the school, but none of us didn’t know what to do.”
Emma Mills, the director of Birchwood, introduced the phone bags last September, which means that students locked their phones at school at school.
The school also has detection measures to ensure that children do not bring a second phone, and uses Velcro bags for children with health conditions or young caregivers.
“Improvements are absolutely remarkable, for example, GCSE has recently experienced and mass developed. Teacher welfare has developed, children focus on the class and children will have enrichment lessons,” he said.
The worker has previously stated that there is no existing plan to cross the legislation, and after he is faced with renewed pressure to ban smartphones in schools.
It is understood that ministers and Sir Keir Starmer believe that managers already have the power to ban phones in schools and have rules.
In accordance with the former conservative government, schools were given irregular guidance to schools who wanted to stop the use of phones on the school day.
A survey conducted by the Children’s Commissioner earlier this year found 90 percent of secondary schools and 99.8 percent of primary schools were policies to stop the use of telephones during the school day.
However, the questionnaire, about 10 percent of secondary schools allowed students to use their phones on their school day.
“There is very harmful content outside. Teachers talked about male students who made harmful claims or mocked them, who made me harsh porn videos, who attract teachers and put them on social media.
Ghey, “This is just ridiculous. There is no room for phones in schools and I think it will be like a small investment from the training department, but there will be great developments on the welfare of the teacher and student,” he said.
However, he warned a postal code that schools can invest to finance telephone pouches.
“If a school does not meet this, the principals told me that it was a choice between a new staff or bags, and these children will do without it. He worries me that they will be more lacking without him,” he said.
In his open letter to Educational Secretary Bridget Phillipson and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, he calls for a legal prohibition that cannot access his phones during the entire school day unless he is exempted from medical or accessibility reasons.
