Six years ago, as staff at the Dutch Calvijn college began considering banning phones from their schools, the idea left some students dumbfounded.

“We were asked if we thought we were living in the 1800s”said Jan Bakker, the president of the college, whose students range in age from 12 to 18, as reported by the Guardian.

While the majority supported the idea, about 20% of parents, teachers and students surveyed were strongly opposed, some were concerned parents, while a few teachers argued that it would be better to embrace new technologies than avoid them .

“Walking through the hallways and schoolyard, you’d see all the kids were on their smartphones. Conversations were missing, the ping pong tables were empty,” the college president said.

Four years after Calvijn College became one of the first schools in the Netherlands not to use smartphones, it is no longer an extreme thing. As students return to classrooms across continental Europe, an increasing number of them will be forced to leave their mobile phones behind. In France, 200 secondary schools are trialling the ban, while French-language schools in Wallonia and Brussels, Belgium, have also gone ahead with their own restrictions.

Italy and Greece have taken softer approaches, allowing students to carry their phones with them throughout the day but banning their use in classrooms.

For those attending Calvijn College, the changes are striking. Since they began requiring students to either leave their phones at home or lock them during the day, school officials have watched the school’s culture change.

“Basically everything we had lost, we got back,” Bakker said. “Students play with each other and talk to each other. And much less interruptions during lessons.”

The impact of the ban also generated interest from other schools in the country. In January 2024, the Dutch government “joined” the debate on this ban, urging schools to ban mobile phones, tablets and smart watches from most secondary school classrooms across the country. It has recently been extended to primary schools.

Late last year, as secondary schools across the Netherlands prepare to follow the recommendations, researchers at Radboud University took the opportunity to document the situation before and after the change.

They polled hundreds of students and parents, as well as dozens of teachers, at two schools with imminent plans to remove cell phones from school premises, revisiting the schools three months after the ban was imposed.

About 20 percent of students reported being less distracted when smartphones were off, said Loes Pouwels, one of the researchers, while teachers described students as more attentive and focused on their classroom tasks. “So I think in terms of cognitive function, overall it was a positive thing.”

Many students also reported more social interactions in real life and that the quality of those interactions had improved, they also found a reduction in cyberbullying as students were offline most of the time.

Three months after the ban, however, not all students are keen on it. About 40% said not using a phone allowed them to enjoy their breaks better, while 37% said they missed their phones. “I have to socialize when I’m not in the mood, which is often,” one respondent told the researchers.

At Calvijn College, those in charge have no doubt that the ban was positive.

“We went through a time when people said we weren’t a modern school, that we were going backwards,” Bakker said.

Today the opposite is happening, he added “It’s like a nice confirmation that the trouble we went through was not for nothing.”