These Year 9 pupils in the Vale of Glamorgan have never known a time when they could bring their phones to school.
Whitmore High School in Barry implemented a mobile phone ban three years ago.
And members of the school’s pupil voice group who spoke to Sky News said they welcomed the move.
“It was definitely a big shock when we came into Year 7 because we were the first year to completely have no phones,” said Charlie.
“You can socialise a bit more. If there were phones, you’d be sat at the table on your phone, not socialising very much.”
‘Quite daunting’
Oscar was the only pupil from his primary school who came to Whitmore High.
“My primary concern was how am I going to keep talking to my friends,” he said.
“Obviously, I’ve made new friends, but going into Year 7 that was really quite daunting because I was thinking ‘I don’t know anyone, I won’t be able to talk to anyone, so I’ll just look a bit weird just sat on my own’. But I think having no phones helped with that.”
And according to Maisie, the ban is “not much of a big deal”.
“Other schools are only now introducing this rule and then there’s people freaking out, not knowing what to do with themselves because they’re not allowed on their phones,” she said.
“Without phones you learn more, you actually take things in… because we don’t have [a phone], we actually have to know what we’re doing”.
‘Better focused’
The previous Conservative government had planned to ban mobile phones in all schools in England.
But whether or not to implement a ban would still have been a decision for headteachers.
Teaching unions said at the time that it was a “non-policy for a non-problem”.
As education is devolved, any decision on an outright ban in Wales would be down to the Welsh government.
Henriette Bertheux, associate assistant head and head of PSE at Whitmore High School, told Sky News the ban had been “nothing but positive”, with pupils “better focused”.
“I think it would be hugely beneficial for all schools. But obviously it’s very difficult to implement,” Ms Bertheux said.
“These pupils that we have here are now in Year 9, it was brought in in Year 7 for them. They’re totally used to it. So once they have gone through the school system, for our school it wouldn’t even be an issue, because they’ll have known of nothing else.”
Wales’s education secretary Lynne Neagle said she was “encouraged” that pupils here and in school across Wales were learning about how to manage risks online.
“Young people are going to be exposed to those risks. So what matters I think is that we equip them with the skills to deal with that and to manage those risks online,” Ms Neagle said.
“And also for schools to consider policies such as the one they’ve introduced here in Whitmore High.”
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But a compulsory ban of mobile phones in all of Wales’s schools is not currently planned.
“All schools have the power to prohibit the use of mobile phones in schools, and most of them do,” Ms Neagle added.
“What we ask when they’re considering these policies is that they think about the well-being of children and young people.”