Is Social Media Breaking School?
OFSTED has backed a ban on social media for under-16s, with its chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver signalling support for an Australian-style restriction.
Sir Martyn Oliver has warned that social media is chipping away at children’s attention spans, eroding the patience needed for learning and contributing to disrespectful attitudes and behaviour in schools.
He revealed that the number of children missing from education rose by 20% last year, describing this as a serious scandal of attendance. Absence, he said, remains endemic across the school system.
The number of permanent exclusions in the 2023–24 academic year was the highest on record, with 10,885 permanent exclusions. Suspensions increased by around 20% to nearly one million. Sir Martyn noted:
“Disruptive behaviour is a huge factor in these figures. Four in ten permanent exclusions and five in ten suspensions result from persistent disruptive behaviour.”
In Australia, 10 major social media companies, including Snapchat, Meta, TikTok and YouTube, are now required to take reasonable steps to prevent children under the age of 16 from holding accounts on their platforms.
Sir Martyn questioned the scale of the crisis, saying:
“How can it be right that children missing entirely from education have risen by a fifth in one year? If that’s not a scandal of attendance, I don’t know what is.”
While attendance in primary schools is returning close to pre-pandemic levels, secondary schools continue to lag behind. Hidden within overall attendance figures, he warned, is a growing crisis of severe absence, defined as children missing half or more of their schooling. Rates of severe absence are now almost three times higher than before the pandemic.
