No phone for secondary school

YANBU to think they don't have to cost £££. YANBU to think it's bonkers to share these purchases on WhatsApp. Wtf?!?

YABU to think that they are unnecessary or that at least make life easier. DD has her bus pass on her phone, also the 245262 homework apps and whatever else. Sometimes they are told to look stuff up on their phones during the lesson or use them to join with an online quiz. She can pay on the bus/train with it. Due to her taking the school bus we keep in contact about her location, if anything is going on with after school club or any emergencies like bus breaking down.

I probably sound like an anxious freak but I also like the idea that she has backup/plans A,B,C and that if she forgets one thing , or it gets stolen (wallet) or lost/damaged(laminated bus pass)she has a backup.

We didn't spend £££ though and don't plan to anytime soon. She gets my old phone when I upgrade and her sim only contract is about £8 a month.

Ds can log onto the school wifi. They sometimes are told to take photos e.g. of food tech for writing up as homework. Sometimes in lessons with a cover teacher they are given permission to listen to music while they complete the work. At the end of term sometimes they play kahoots etc. Homework is set and completed on Teams. They have a class whats app group dedicated to reminding each other about homework/ asking homework questions (set up by the students not the school). Affluent school in affluent neighborhood. I could make a stand but that would isolate him from his peers. He already doesn't have the latest i-phone, fortunately he isn't too bothered.

I have googled before (to no avail), but does anyone have an age graph type thing that shows year groups relative to ages?

YANBU. A lot of people think that the genie is out the bottle now and we just need to accept it but I do sense Ima bit of a sea change coming with movements such as the smartphone free childhood groups (someone posted a video piece linked to them above) really gaining momentum. I hope that we’ll at least see a bit more understanding of the issues, less naivety and more measures to mitigate them in the coming years.

I don't think lockdown has anything to do with phones, my children were at secondary before that and they both had smartphones in Year 7 (the eldest in 2011). They don't need them but everyone else mostly has them around then. No one needs a phone really, we just think we do. When I wanted to talk to my mum and she was at work I would have to ring her workplace and ask for her, if it was an emergency.
Unfortunately a lot of socialising is done around the phones. That isn't a good thing, it's a bad thing. But it is how it is.

I think pp is talking about the actual running costs though?

They will often provide laptops for the work, not phones though.

My DD is 6 in Year 2 and one of her friends has her own phone. We were all at a party the other day and the girl approached her mum and asked if she could check her phone. I thought she meant her mum's phone. Mum produced two phones - her own and the little girl's. Fook knows who she calls or texts as none of the others has a phone !!

Yabu. My dc had smartphones at secondary with no issues apart from one minor WhatsApp issue. It is considered the norm. You as parent show them how to use it appropriately, make sure you know they understand that you'll be monitoring their use.

Tbf, there's a lot they don't provide isn't there. Nothing is free 😔

YANBU

its not necessary and in fact I believe now the facts are known (around the damage of social media and persuasive design products like iPhones) that we are actually culpable giving young children (under age 16) access to any of this stuff. I certainly won’t be getting on that bandwagon and I’ll be looking for a school and cohort of similar parents to keep my child in like minded company. I believe the tide is turning and people are realising the negative impact blindly following along with this “norm” is having.

if nothing else look at the actions of the tech geeks - Gates / Zuckerberg / the guy who started Snapchat etc. NONE of them give their kids access to smart phones and certainly not social media. (They’re happy to make billions ££££ from our kids though)

Let’s not be sheep and take the parental power back. 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻 Collective action is real.

I think it depends on what secondary school looks like for each child really. My sister & I are in our twenties now and we both got phones when we started secondary school because getting to secondary school meant walking a mile ish to the bus stop & then getting on the bus to school, and once we were both in secondary there was no childminder for us so we would be home alone just for an hour or so after school, so our parents wanted us to have the phones for safety & so that if there were any issues we could call them.

My 2 little cousins both have had phones from starting secondary for similar reasons but also because now their timetable and homework are on there through an app and they are sort of encouraged to use phones by their schools in some cases. As an example one of them is just into year 7 and as part of their geography homework they have been put into groups and asked to complete a little project thing, naturally they have made a Whatsapp group chat and spent an hour a night once a week on facetime discussing/working on it. It’s all well and good disagreeing with certain aspects of social media etc but this technology is so common place now that if you’re sending your child in without one then you’re making them the odd one out, the one who will be left out of the plans and chat as that takes place in group chats, and in circumstances like her geography one your child is the awkward one that nobody wants to be grouped up with next time because they are awkward and not able to do the group calls etc.

You can get cheap contract phones for £7.50 a month. Or second hand basic smartphones for £20 on eBay. It doesn't have to cost a fortune

DD’s school expects students to be able to use phones to do all sorts of things throughout the day. The few parents I knew who were against cell phones caved and bought one once they saw how much they were utilized.

We are aiming for a smartphone free life. I also wish that schools didn't use bloody apps for homework, it just encourages the "oh, I need it for school" and then all the rest of the crap that comes with it.

He's a gas man there isn't he? Pockets the millions, then waffles on like that! For right or wrong, tech is reality now. And if schools are utilising it as part of their day to day, it's just part of the brave new world. It's terrifying, don't get me wrong, but it is what it is. It's lifelong learning for us 'older' people.

I wanted to be able to track DS on the walk to and from school. I'm a single parent, had to work full time and sometimes he came home to an empty house from age 11, I wanted to be sure he got back safe.

What I’d you can’t afford it though? Does that mean they don’t get homework? My friend couldn’t afford a phone for her children. No way.

I agree. There are people doing studies on social media and the brain!!!

they do not mix well. One of the first people who helped Zuckerberg created Facebook has said he wished he hadn’t and it was a nuclear weapon for humanity

i agree with him

DD needs one to access her homework so you might want to check with the school whether they'll need one or not.

Oh and he has no reason to be taking it into school.

My year six son got a phone for his birthday. We are starting to leave him home by himself a little to gain a bit of independence so I preferred that he had a way of contacting us if there were any problems.

He has no access to social media and very strict parental controls on it.

I am very wary of kids with phones and screens in general but we feel happier that he can contact us if needed.

They do need a smart phone really as they do almost everything on apps. All their timetables are on apps. They use to take pics in class for reference. They aren't allowed to use them in school unless instructed by the teacher.

They don't need the latest expensive phones but they do need to be able to run some basic apps!