What Children Do at Break Time Without Smartphones | Jaques

Walk past an English school playground at half past ten and, until recently, you might have seen a curious sight: clusters of children standing still, heads bowed over glowing screens, thumbs moving. Break time had gone quiet.

In February 2024 the UK Department for Education announced a ban on mobile phones in English schools, issuing guidance to headteachers on enforcing a full-day prohibition. The policy handed break time back to the children. The question was what they would do with it.

The answer, it turns out, is much the same thing British children have done for centuries. At Jaques, founded in 1795, we have watched playground games come and go, and we build the equipment for them from FSC-certified timber, tested to UKCA and CE safety standards. What follows is what happens when the phone goes back in the bag.

What a Smartphone Ban at School Actually Means for Break Time

A smartphone ban at school is not simply a rule about lessons. The guidance issued in February 2024 covers the whole school day, which means the corridors, the lunch queue and, above all, break time.

For years, break was where phones did their quietest damage. A child who was distracted in a maths lesson could at least be redirected by a teacher. A child scrolling in the yard was invisible, alone in plain sight, and the fifteen minutes that once belonged to running and shouting belonged instead to a screen.

Enforcement is the part headteachers find hardest. A ban written on paper does little; a ban that is actually held to changes the texture of the day. The schools that manage it tend to collect phones at the gate or require them switched off and out of sight, and they replace the vacuum rather than leaving it empty.

That last point matters more than any confiscation policy. Children do not respond well to a rule that only takes something away. They respond to a rule that offers something in return, which is why the schools with the smoothest transitions are the ones that have painted hopscotch grids back onto the tarmac and put boxes of skipping ropes by the door.

The evidence supports the effort. A 2015 study by Beland and Murphy at the London School of Economics found that banning mobile phones in schools raised the test scores of underperforming pupils by 14.23 per cent. The gains were concentrated among the children who needed them most, and they arrived without a single extra lesson.

Why Unstructured Play Without Screens Matters More Than Parents Realise

Unstructured play is the kind no adult has planned. No worksheet, no coach, no fixture list, no set outcome. Children decide the rules, argue about them, break them and remake them. It looks like chaos and it is, in fact, a form of work.

What children learn in that chaos is difficult to teach any other way. Negotiation happens when two of them want to be the same thing in a game. Fairness is tested every time someone is accused of cheating. Resilience is built in the ordinary business of losing, and losing again, and coming back for another go.

A screen offers none of this. It offers stimulation without friction, reward without waiting, company without the effort of actually getting along with anyone. The gap between the two is why so many parents notice their children are calmer and more capable after an afternoon spent playing with nothing electronic at all.

We have written before about how much time should children spend playing, and the honest answer is more than most now manage. Free, self-directed play has been quietly squeezed out by structured activities on one side and screens on the other.

The relationship between screens and attention is worth understanding on its own terms, particularly for children who struggle to settle, and we explore it in our piece on ADHD, screen time and wooden toys. The point is not that screens are uniquely wicked. It is that unstructured play does specific developmental work, and there is no app that replaces it.

Break time, protected from phones, is one of the few reliable stretches of unstructured play left in a British child's week. That is reason enough to defend it.

What Children Do When Phones Are Taken Away (And Why It Surprises Everyone)

The most common prediction, before a ban takes hold, is boredom. Adults imagine listless children with nothing to do, mourning their phones. What actually happens is stranger and more cheerful.

Within a week or two, the old games come back. Not because anyone teaches them, though a few painted lines help, but because they are the natural things to do with a hard surface, a few friends and fifteen free minutes. The games are older than anyone in the playground.

Hopscotch reappears first, usually. It has documented roots in Britain stretching back to the 17th century, with early references in Francis Willughby's Book of Games from around the 1660s, now held at Nottingham University. A child chalking squares onto tarmac is repeating something children have done for four hundred years.

Conkers arrive in autumn, as they always have. Horse chestnuts on strings have been a recognised British pastime since at least the mid-19th century, and the first organised competition was held in Ashton, Northamptonshire, in 1965. The playground rediscovers this without prompting the moment the trees drop their fruit.

Marbles follow, a game that spans centuries and became a mass playground fixture once machine-made glass marbles appeared from around 1902. Children who have never seen one played work out the rules within an afternoon, drawn to the simple satisfaction of a glass sphere finding its target.

What surprises everyone is the noise. A playground without phones is loud again, full of shouting and disputes and laughter. The children were never bored. They were only waiting for the thing in their pocket to stop competing for their attention. Many of these games sit within our traditional games, unchanged for good reason.

How to Reinforce the Smartphone Ban at Home So It Sticks

A school ban works far better when home does not quietly undo it. If the phone comes out the moment the gate is behind them, the child learns that the rule is arbitrary, imposed rather than shared, and worth resisting.

The aim is not to run a household ban of the same severity. It is to make sure the values line up, so that free time at home also has room in it for something other than a screen. Consistency between school and home is what makes any boundary feel real to a child.

Conflict is the usual obstacle, and it is avoidable. We have written a full guide on how to limit screen time without conflict, and the recurring theme is replacement over confrontation. A phone removed from an empty afternoon feels like punishment. A phone set aside because a game of draughts is already underway feels like nothing at all.

Our board games are useful precisely here, because they give the evening a shape that competes with the screen rather than merely forbidding it. A family that plays together after dinner rarely needs to argue about phones, because the phones are simply not the interesting thing in the room.

For parents who want firmer footing on the numbers and the research, our 2026 guide to how much screen time is too much for children sets out what the evidence actually supports, without alarm.

And when a child protests that there is nothing else to do, that is the cue to prove otherwise. We have gathered offline activities to replace phones for school-age children for exactly those moments. The rule sticks when the alternative is genuinely better, not merely permitted.

What to Give Children Instead of a Screen During Free Time

The best replacement for a screen is not a lecture about screens. It is a better offer, sitting within reach, ready to be picked up without much thought.

Start with the games that have already proven themselves in the playground. A skipping rope, a bag of marbles and a set of conkers cost little and travel everywhere, and they draw children outdoors in the way a phone draws them in. Many of these sit within our children toys, chosen because they ask something of a child rather than merely occupying them.

Indoors, the answer is usually a good board game. A draughts set or a game of dominoes gives two children a reason to sit across from one another, and the negotiation, waiting and losing that unstructured play teaches happens here too, around a table. Our board games are built to be handled, dropped and played hard for years.

For younger children, our wooden toys do quiet, patient work. Building, stacking and sorting hold attention without flashing for it, and the calm that follows is noticeable. Every piece we make is cut from FSC-certified timber and tested to UKCA and CE standards, because a toy meant to be chewed and thrown deserves that assurance.

The broader collection of our wooden toys covers the years from toddler to school age, and our traditional games gather the playground classics that a phone ban has quietly brought back into fashion.

None of this needs to be complicated. A ball, a rope, a box of counters and a little space. Children supply the rest, as they always have, the moment the screen stops asking for their eyes.

Frequently Asked Questions About Smartphone Ban Enforcement

What do children do at break time without phones?

Without smartphones, children at break time typically return to physical and social play: running games such as tag and British bulldog, clapping games, skipping with ropes, and informal football. Classic playground pastimes like hopscotch — which has documented British roots dating to the 17th century — naturally re-emerge. Children also chat, invent imaginative games, swap cards, or simply explore the outdoor space. Following the UK Department for Education's February 2024 guidance on full-day phone prohibition in English schools, many schools have reported a visible return to exactly these kinds of active, social break-time activities.

Is a smartphone ban in schools actually working?

Evidence suggests school phone bans produce measurable benefits. A 2015 London School of Economics study found that banning mobile phones in schools increased test scores of underperforming students by 14.23%, indicating meaningful academic gains particularly for those who struggle most. The UK Department for Education issued guidance to English headteachers in February 2024 on enforcing a full-day prohibition, reflecting growing confidence in the policy. Anecdotal reports from schools following implementation describe busier, noisier playgrounds and improved social interaction at break time, suggesting benefits extend beyond academic performance alone.

How do I enforce a smartphone ban at home?

Consistent household rules work best when established collaboratively. Agree on specific phone-free times — meals, the hour before bed, and weekend mornings, for instance — and apply them to adults too, which removes the sense of unfairness children often resent. Use a physical charging station outside bedrooms as a neutral handover point. Replace phone time with a concrete alternative: a board game, an outdoor activity, or a creative project. Clear, predictable boundaries are easier for children to accept than vague or inconsistently enforced ones. Review and adjust the rules together every few weeks as children grow.

What age should children stop using smartphones during the day?

There is no universally agreed age, but the direction of expert and policy opinion is towards restricting daytime smartphone use throughout childhood and early adolescence. The UK Department for Education's February 2024 guidance covers all pupils in English schools regardless of age, reflecting concern across primary and secondary years. Many child development specialists suggest that unrestricted daytime access is unhelpful at any age below 16. Rather than focusing on a cut-off age, the more practical question is whether any given child's phone use is displacing sleep, physical activity, face-to-face socialising, or schoolwork.

Why is unstructured play good for children?

Unstructured play — time in which children choose their own activity without adult direction — develops negotiation, creativity, resilience, and emotional regulation in ways that structured activities cannot replicate. When children invent their own games, resolve disputes, and manage boredom, they build genuine social competence. Physical play also supports motor development, cardiovascular health, and concentration. ly, these benefits depend on the play being genuinely child-led: the moment an adult prescribes the activity or a screen supplies the entertainment, much of the developmental value diminishes. Break time without phones is one of the few remaining daily windows where unstructured play naturally occurs.

What games do children play in the playground without screens?

Without screens, children naturally rediscover a rich set of playground games with long British histories. Hopscotch has documented roots in Britain dating to the 17th century, appearing in Francis Willughby's 'Book of Games' (c.1665). Conkers — horse chestnuts on strings — has been a recognised British pastime since at least the mid-19th century, with the first organised competition held in Ashton, Northamptonshire in 1965. Marbles, skipping, tag, British bulldog, clapping and hand-games, and informal football all reappear reliably when phones are absent. These games require no equipment, teach turn-taking, and scale easily across different ages.

How do I get my child to play outside instead of on their phone?

The most effective approach is to make going outside the default rather than a reward or punishment. Establish regular outdoor time as a fixed part of the day, ideally at the same time each day so it becomes routine rather than negotiable. Invite a friend over, supply simple equipment — a ball, a skipping rope, a set of marbles — and then step back. Children rarely sustain outdoor play when heavily supervised. Reducing the availability of the phone during that window, rather than simply asking children to put it down, removes the competition entirely and makes the outdoor option more appealing by default.

Does banning phones at school improve children's mental health?

The evidence base specifically linking school phone bans to mental health improvements is still developing, but associated findings are encouraging. The 2015 London School of Economics study demonstrated that phone bans disproportionately benefited underperforming students academically, and reduced academic stress and distraction are recognised contributors to better wellbeing. Separately, greater physical activity and face-to-face social interaction at break time — both of which increase when phones are absent — are consistently associated with improved mood and reduced anxiety in children. The UK Department for Education's February 2024 guidance to English schools reflects a growing policy view that phone-free environments support pupil wellbeing alongside academic outcomes.

What should children do instead of being on their phone?

Practical alternatives to phone use include physical play outdoors, board games, card games, reading, drawing, building with construction toys, cooking with a parent, and learning a simple craft or skill. Social alternatives — visiting a friend, joining a club, playing a team sport — deliver particular developmental value because they build relationships and communication skills that screen time cannot replicate. Classic British playground games such as hopscotch, conkers, and marbles require minimal equipment and can be played immediately. The goal is not to fill every moment with improving activity, but to ensure that boredom is met with real-world options rather than reflexive screen use.

How much free play do primary school children need each day?

The UK Chief Medical Officers' physical activity guidelines recommend that children aged 5–18 accumulate at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity daily, much of which can and should come through active free play. Beyond the physical minimum, child development specialists broadly suggest that primary-age children benefit from at least an hour of genuinely unstructured, child-directed time each day outside of school hours. Most primary schools provide two break periods totalling roughly 45 minutes within the school day. The remainder ideally comes from after-school outdoor time or free play at home, with screens absent during at least part of that window.

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