Most schools in Oxfordshire and the rest of the country either ban mobile phones altogether or view them as a nuisance that has no place during lesson time.

However, the tide could be turning as an increasing number of teachers come round to the idea that mobile devices, including phones, have a vital role to play in the modern-day classroom.

Supporters point to the fact that laptops and notebook computers are already in use in schools and claim there is little difference between them and the new generation of smartphones.

Smartphones are simply mobile phones that offer advanced capabilities, often with PC-style features such as e-mail, internet, camera and e-book access.

In other words, they are miniature computers that also include a mobile phone facility.

Typical educational uses include searching and downloading from the internet, recording sound and taking digital photographs.

Mick Brookes, who is general secretary of one of the biggest teaching unions, the National Association of Head Teachers, went on record in October last year as saying schools should embrace the opportunities that mobile phones can offer.

Critics say it is too difficult to monitor their use and allowing them to be used for learning would make it too easy for students to text each other in class undetected, or even that it might promote cyber bullying.

One school actively encouraging the use of mobile phones as part of the curriculum, albeit with supervision from teachers, is Notre Dame High School in Sheffield.

The 1,400-pupil state school regards mobile phones and MP3 players as miniature computers that represent a free and largely untapped resource for learning.

Notre Dame says since many of their students already have their own smartphones, there is little or no cost involved.

Mobile phones are being used to take photographs during experiments or geography fieldwork that can later be pasted into the written report, and also to record speech during English or drama lessons.

The school’s wireless network has been reconfigured so that students can log-on to the network in a secure, monitored environment.

Recently, students used mobile phones loaded with ecological software to help record data they gathered while on a field trip.

In a similar move, 30 students at Gumley House Convent School in West London have been loaned iPhones topped-up with £15 credit to use as part of everyday lessons.

The idea is that students can download educational software and applications, including the periodic table, Shakespeare, GCSE history, algebra and maths onto the phones. And Saltash Community School in Plymouth has been experimenting with portable devices such as netbooks and now smartphones for some time.

Students are encouraged to use their phones to log data while working out in the field, for collaborative work in class projects and to access the Internet from anywhere within the school campus.

Saltash believes that by allowing those who have brought smartphones to use them, it frees up the school’s ICT resources for other students.

So could this radical new approach to learning catch on in Oxfordshire secondary schools?

Simon Duffy, head teacher at Chipping Norton School, said he would definitely not rule it out.

“Thanks to mobile phones, many of our students now have the ability to communicate by e-mail and text, to store and send images, to take film, to listen to music and podcasts to access the internet.

“All of those are things we recognise as being positive skills. What we need to do is find a way of embracing it and harnessing it appropriately and that is the challenge.

“It is about educating students and parents and just as importantly, staff keeping up to date with the technology. So it will come.

He added: “I follow with interest what is happening in Sheffield, and I am sure that it won’t be terribly long before similar schemes are in place in this neck of the woods.”