Mr Birmingham has described smartphones as being “a distraction from lessons” and a “platform for bullying”, however St Raphael’s principal Michael Gallagher has said any proposal would effect the school.

“Our  current practice is students are not to have mobile phones with them during the school day,” he said.

“They can bring them to the school and take them from the school, but we secure them throughout the day on the kids behalf.

“The reasoning for that is the protection of the kids in regards to electronic bullying, harassment, recording of video and audio and to prevent the possibility of that being uploaded in anyway to the web.

“I would endorse it entirely, but what Mr Birmingham has been proposing is what has been our practice for the last 18 years, so any proposal would cause no change for us,” he said.

Mr Gallagher said the removal of the distraction of smartphones was something that had to be actively taken control of.

“When you take away that technology, you have to make sure the provision by the school for the students technological needs is quite sharp,” he said.

“It’s got to be good quality, it’s got to be appropriate but it’s also got to be within the oversight and control of the school.

“By saying no devices of your own, we are thereby adopting the responsibility to provide good quality current technology in the school setting for the enhancement of learning,” he said.

 A Department of Education and Cowra High spokesperson said individual public schools developed their own policies for smartphones and tablets, in consultation with the school community.

“Development of policies take into account aspects such as digital citizenship, 21st Century learning, students’ communication needs, privacy and public school values including respect responsibility, care and fairness,” the spokesperson said.

“Public school networks do not allow students to connect their devices to social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat.

“At all schools inappropriate use of mobile phones and other devices will be subject to disciplinary procedures, including suspension and reporting potentially illegal activities to police and other authorities.

“Devices can be used in schools for educational purposes and this is determined by the teacher and this aspect is covered in schools’ policies,” the spokesperson said.

Mr Gallagher agreed any smartphone policy implemented needed consultation with parents.

“We want the children to be protected, parents want the children to be protected, so we’ve got common ground straight away,” he said.

“Parental attitude in this is key and I suppose my advice to a school trying to introduce a policy would be, let’s make it very clear about the purpose of the policy and use the dialog with the parents as a key plank in the platform you are trying to work.

“Texting, snapchatting, videos, photos, recordings and what’s done with them, can be used against the kids.

“It’s yet another avenue where potential victimization can happen and it’s an unnecessary avenue, we don’t need to have it there, so lets be done with it.

“Because we already have a policy in place it hasn’t been a problem, if students are found with phones then they are confiscated and the parents are asked to come in and collect the phones.

“We return the phones to the parents, sometimes they don’t like having to do that, but the do appreciate  the motivation for it is the protection of their child.

“There’s not a dispute about that ever, we want to protect our kids that’s the bottom line and both the school and parents want that and that should be the starting point,” he said.