A London head teacher is trialling a 12-hour day at his school to try to keep students off their phones for longer.

Andrew O’Neill wants to encourage pupils to turn up to All Saints Catholic College in Notting Hill at 7am in the morning and stay until 7pm at night.

In the hours outside of regular lessons, he wants pupils to enjoy extra sports, art and cooking classes, which he says will be better for them than going home and spending the rest of the day scrolling on their phones.

Speaking to The Times newspaper, Mr O’Neill said that children are getting worse at making friends, making eye contact and having conversations.

He said: “We have a long-term issue we need to solve. If we don’t, we’ll have a problem [in] workplaces and society. Some children don’t care about anything. They are buried in their phones.”

He added that he’s found “some of the most shocking things I have ever seen” on phones confiscated from pupils, such as cyberbullying.