No phone for secondary school

It's the 'fear' imo. I'm 'only' in my early 40s but I admit I'm way behind with the apps. And DD is 12 so is going to have lots of different stuff. But trying to ignore tech is (for want of a more elegant phrase) 'pissing in the wind'. It's not going anywhere, so (imo) we need to teach kids to use/work with it, rather than avoid it. Sorry for all the brackets!

Those saying needed for school homework… it’s the same for my kids now in primary. So why not just access via family iPad/computer?

DS (15) uses his phone for
Bus Pass
Access school timetable
Accessing homework portals a d messages from teachers.
WassApp groups for - Orchestra, DoE, Explorers
Music composition app (gcse music)
Guitar tuner app
Keeping in touch with his friends.
Kindle app

They are not allowed their phones out in school, unless told by teachers for a specific purpose, and never at break time.

It is useful for keeping j. Touch with him after school sometimes, as he relies on a pretty shaky bus service.

DD(12, Y7) uses her phone for

Access school timetable
Accessing homework portals a d messages from teachers.
Keeping in touch with her friends

At DD's school, they have their phones in at the start of the day, and get them back at home time.

Although. Dd walks to school, Stevie a social butterfly who will ring to tell me she is going Tom x/y/z 's house straight from school, or for fibrin out where she is at times!

Both children have one phones of dh and mine's
Neither child has any social media

Unfortunately the chances are your child will need access to apps for subjects, homework, sports etc. The chances are all of their sports will require WhatsApp. As will their friendship groups.

By all means control and ensure you oversee the phone but if youns decide to not provide one then be aware there will be social consequences. Price wise I've never spent more than E100 and they have lasted years.

If parents could see what I see in class you would be clamouring for the banning of phones in school and colleges... The catch 22 is students are not allowed their phones in class.
However it's hard getting them off their phones and they do have them in class.

Phones now also mean ear buds, u tube and so on and students can sit in class and be watching what they like.

Of course they can be told to stop but without removing the phone and with one teacher's, how do you police that and teach and deal with all the usual behaviours?

Schools won't admit this (obviously some of are much stricter than others), but it's an abomination on our younger people.

It's a blight on their lives.

Going to and from school, fine but really all school and college should have government backing to ban phones in class.

I was at school during the seventies and early eighties. I left school with the sixth form of 1984.

I clearly remember people holding out against computers in schools (or anywhere really) because they had always managed with pen and paper so nothing needed to change. That went really well, didn't it??!! Why is it that we hold out against technology in this country in this way? As if we don't think that it is the future and would rather hark back to some "good old days" - maybe saying we didn't have it, so our children don't need it (or some such bollocks).

My Dad was rather like this and really didn't "do" change much at all. My mother is a little more progressive, but still doesn't really get it. No online banking or much in the way of internet for her. She does have an Alexa now though, which she likes for listening to the radio, the weather forecast, asking it for the time and listening to audio books (she can no longer read due to age related eyesight issues). So she has sort of seen some advantages that this can have for her now, but remains very limited in her use of it. As for smartphones or anything else, she asks me and my sister to look everything up for her, which we do.🤣🤣

Thank you!

Totally agree in theory but as others have said, their timetables are on there, homework etc.
Ours also have their bus pass as a qr code which is needed for the school bus.
The positives have outweighed any negatives to be honest. Things like being able to navigate train/bus times when they missed school bus, online banking when they went on school holiday and therefore didn't need cash.
Not sure if this is a boy/girl issue but mine are boys and not interested in social media (exc texting friends via WhatsApp) so phones haven't had negative impact. The Xbox however....!

I disagree with most, agree with PatFussy, I see it as essential, apps at school, forming friendships. I feel that parents who don't comply, (and it's easy to get a cheaper older phone) so their children a disservice.

Year 6 is last year of primary and most children turn 11 during that school year. You can figure out all the others relative to that one by adding on a year of age for every year of school.

I'm a secondary teacher and would happily see students not have smartphones. We set homework on Google classroom but there's absolutely no need to access it via a phone. It works much better on a laptop or desktop. I think most parents have genuinely no idea what their kids see and get up to on their phones. I spend my life dealing with the fallout, which is why DD won't be getting a smartphone until she's Y9 at least. Jonathan Haidt has done some very thorough research on how smartphones have caused a collapse in teen and tween mental health, which provides empirical backing to what I've seen for myself over the last 15 years of teaching.

It's lazy thinking saying that this is just life now. Yes it's life for adults but it doesn't have to be for children and young teens. Things can change and the evidence suggests it needs to.

Yes and I’d bet all those tech bros don’t let their kids have smartphones…

YANBU @StillCreatingAName
There’s a whole new grassroots movement called Smartphone Free Childhood out there. I’m starting to get on board with what they’re saying. The smartphone is a social experiment on this generation of kids 🥺

Of course they don't HAVE to have them. There is no law saying that they must have smartphones for secondary school.

However, surely some people's replies have given you some insight into why the majority DO have them.

You can hold out as long as you like. Come back at the end of this year and let us know how long you lasted before pressure from both the school (despite their bans) and your child become too much.

It's not just the apps that schools use for homework. I found that when they were all going on school trips the teachers in charge collected a list of the students' phone numbers as an additional safety measure if someone did get lost or go astray (rare, but can happen). So the bans are not total.

I do think they need to be equipped with this knowledge now though, like we had to be taught to use computers. Like them or loathe them, phones are part of life now. So better to teach kids how to use them rather than trying to pretend they don't exist. They're pervasive.

There is currently a consultation in schools, following government recommendations on smartphones and Esther Ghey’s campaign. Many secondaries are completely banning smartphones and watches due to the problems caused by them and the increasing number of students who are addicted to them. Like other posters, I think that there are lots of really positive uses of phones but unfortunately, many young people ( and adults!) can’t moderate their usage. Speaking as a teacher, there are always workarounds for timetables, setting HW and school-based things, not least because not every child has a phone for various reasons. I think you will see changes in schools in the near future.

We got our kids phones at age 10 because it made it much easier to coordinate things. They’ve had access to the Internet since way before that and we’ve been instilling good practices since the beginning, including talking explicitly about social media, ways to use it sensibly, what to avoid and what to do if something is upsetting or doesn’t seem right. They don’t use that much algorithm based social media but we’ve also talked about the way media tries to target an audience and how detrimental it can be to live in that sort of a bubble. (Don’t limit this to just social media, though. We talk a lot about how even mainstream news organizations try to do this and the way things like only being friends with people who share your views can lead to a skewed view of the world).

Outside of school the phones have been particularly good when we’re off out for the day, making meeting up way easier than it used to be when I was kid and still carried 10p around to use a phone box when necessary. That was why we got them and it’s don’e the job well. But the added use they get out of them more generally has been of far more benefit.

At school and out they use their phones in much the same way I do in my life - to access their schedule on the go, communicate with others (friends, teachers and me mainly, but also people they’ve never met who share interests), make notes and reminders so they don’t forget things (especially useful for one DC who is particularly scatty), practice languages, maths and other academic subjects, look things up, manage their money and listen to music.

In the 5 years they’ve had these phones we’ve had no negative issues associated with their use that we have noticed (and we do check, though much less now they’re 15) or that have been serious enough for the school or any one else to contact us about.

Why wouldn’t I want them to have those sorts of tools?

My friends son on his first time coming home on the bus from secondary school, forgot to get off at his stop. Luckily his Mum was tracking him on his smart phone and able to jump in the car, follow the bus and get to him when he eventually got off, in a right state. Smart phones aren't the devil, social media is. That is what should be banned. Allowing kids to use Instagram, tiktok and snapchat.

I think the tide is changing and the genie is going to be put back in the bottle. All the schools around us are smartphone free at the gate and there is a large and vocal community to make smartphone free childhood the norm here.

schools using apps for homework is pretty lazy but moderately ok as that can be tablet that lives in the communal home spaces. Schools using Teams or other apps are surely just being lazy… they’re designed for globally diverse groups who can’t communicate in real life.

anyone getting their child a smartphone cos they need to take a bus or train is just enabling their child to incorporate mindless scrolling into their routine. A basic phone for calling would do the job for emergencies.

when my now 9 year old was 4 I made a flippant reply to ‘when can I have a phone mummy’ of 14. I’m now really hoping I can push it back to 16

We've done this in advance of secondary and a longer trip. To get her used to it. No doubt it won't be perfect, but it is what it is.

Follow smartphone free childhood on Instagram.

All the studies show an overwhelming negative effect of children having smartphones.
Things NEED to change. We have made a big mistake letting kids having phones become the norm.

DD starts yr 7 in September and she is almost the only one in her year that doesn't have a phone yet. I don't want her to have a smartphone for much longer but also I am aware she will be very much in the minority at secondary and I don't want her to be excluded/teased due to that. Just don't know what to do. Stuck between a rock and a hard place comes to mind.

Maybe a 11-12 year old needs a phone in order to live in 2024 when the vast amount of information is available digitally.

We use map apps, not paper maps. That will help them to navigate the local streets.

They will access news websites to see the results of sports matches or what time the game is on TV, are you expecting them to buy a newspaper?

They will text their friends, instead of writing letters. Access money management apps instead of saving pound coins in a piggy bank.

We live now, kids need to learn how to use the technology of now. Demonising phones or those who use them makes you sound deeply out of touch, OP. And pretty damn judgemental.

Another reason to use a phone is to be exposed to a wider world of opinions. Maybe think of all the good reasons for a young teen to have a an incredibly useful and versatile device owned by almost every adult instead of frothing about it.

I'm in my mid-30s and I had a phone at 10? My son has an iPhone, I track him when he's using the bus. He has apple pay on there with an old bank account of mine so if he's ever stuck, he can pay for something without taking a bank card/cash. His bus ticket is on there, his timetable and homework apps etc. He's also able to let me know if there's traffic and he's going to be late or that hes staying for after-school club. It's a way of life now.

Mine was given a phone at the end of year 6, uses it reasonably well and it’s regularly checked. some of the WhatsApp messages are a bit dubious but my child doesn’t really use the main tutor chat it’s normally the little chats with friends, arranging their social life 😂

Timetable, homework are all done via an app.

No facebook/snapchat or any of that rubbish!

Parental controls are set and the phone goes off at 8pm and can’t be access again until 7.30am. I have also set app limits so after the allocated hours it’s not accessible.

Main reason we gave a phone was the unreliable bus journey, I’ve had several phone calls the bus hasn’t turned up, bus was late, bus broken down 🤷‍♀️ I also like the location settings as I can track them.

Dc2 has one as well but it’s mainly used to playing game on car journeys…and texting me what’s for lunch over the half terms/holidays 😂 or checking in with me for example I go on a dog walk and they haven’t listened to me telling them where I am going 🤣🤣