Ruqayah, who graduated from a western Sydney high school in 2024, thinks the bans were an “overreaction”. After going through high school with access to phones, she finished her final year with the phone ban in place and says fellow students were still finding ways to use them in secret.

If they’re being forced to use them in secret, then they are being forced to use them in a less disruptive manner. It makes it easier for the students complying in good faith with the ban to concentrate and goes some way to normalising a lack of visible phone use in schools. Teenagers are never going to 100% comply with a ban on their liberties, but if some of them do then it is an improvement.

When I was in high school, we changed from very lax uniform rules one year to strict ones the next. Of course there were some students who didn’t comply with the rules and continued to wear what they wanted and risk punishment, but because a majority of students did comply it made it easier for all of us. We didn’t feel like we were missing out or at risk of being bullied for complying with the rules. Over time, the culture of the school changed to one where students just complied with the uniform rule by default. I’m not trying to compare uniforms to smartphones here; it’s just common sense that you don’t abandon a ban overnight because it wasn’t instantly 100% effective.