A flat-out phone ban in schools could be around the corner in England.

On Monday, Britain’s Education Secretary Gillian Keegan announced upcoming guidance from the Department of Education that recommends school principals prohibit phone use — both during classroom time and free time throughout the school day.

The Department said the move “aims to support the wider work the government is doing to raise standards in schools by increasing students’ focus and reducing distractions.”

That’s after researchers from the British government found that 29% of secondary school students say they used phones in most or all of their classes.

England joins Portugal, Italy and France, which have all moved to ban phones in classrooms.

I think it’s time more school districts in the United States do, too — and that’s because I know firsthand just how valuable school phone bans really can be.

I, like most of my Gen Z peers, was 10 years old when I got my first iPhone.

Looking back, screen time robbed me of memories I surely would have made playing outside with friends or spending quality time with family.

But I’m grateful that my school memories are untainted by my phone — thanks entirely to my private K-8 New Jersey school’s decision to prohibit phones outside of backpacks.

Administrators put the fear of God into us by confiscating any phones spotted on campus, then requiring us to take the walk of shame to the principal’s office — accompanied by our furious parents — to pick it up at the end of the day.

Of course, kids still used their phones in bathroom stalls or snuck quick glances into backpacks to check notifications. But phones were largely out of sight and out of mind.

As a result, my elementary and middle school memories are filled with playground games, conversations in the cafeteria and undistracted time in classrooms. 

At my high school, however, phone policies were left up to teachers who largely shirked off the responsibility to punish in-class texters so as not to be the “bad cop.”

The campus culture was quite the opposite of my prior school’s: kids scrolling during lessons, masses of zombies looking down at their phones in the hallways, and lunch tables full of students sitting right next to each other … but rarely conversing.

Looking back, I believe my peers and I lost social time and learning time — something that could have been easily prevented by a simple policy change.

In fact, a 2015 landmark study from the London School of Economics determined that banning phones in schools added 6% to test scores and the equivalent of an extra hour of learning weekly.

My high school experience is a cautionary tale. And more American policymakers should follow in the UK’s footsteps to ensure this doesn’t happen in their districts.

Of course, here in the United States we rightfully give state and local officials the power to set school policies that work for their students.

While the National Center for Education Statistics reports 77% of American public schools have implemented a phone ban in some form, that number should be closer to 100% and the bans should be stricter, considering 97% of 11- to 17-year-olds still report being on their phone during the school day.

Here in New York, it’s especially a free-for-all.

Although Mayor Bloomberg banned phones from New York City public schools in 2010, Mayor DeBlasio reversed that order five years later, claiming it was “out of touch with modern parenting.”

But DeBlasio was the one out of touch. Parents are waking up to an obvious reality: Kids are losing their childhood to devices.

They shouldn’t lose their education, too.

And experts agree.

“All children deserve schools that will help them learn, cultivate deep friendships, and develop into mentally healthy young adults. All children deserve phone-free schools,” NYU professor and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt wrote on his Substack.

“Hurrah! The UK is embracing phone-free schools,” Haidt, author of the upcoming book “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,” exclaimed on X Monday. “US states should do it too.”

He’s right. Gen Z were the guinea pigs who proved that allowing phones in school hurt lesson-learning, friend-making and memory-forming.

Now it’s time to ensure that Generation Alpha doesn’t meet the same fate.