To be annoyed by total phone ban

They are very 'streetwise', mostly in a positive way. They have a confidence I could only have dreamed of having at their age. And they're used to having to navigate difficult situations - quite frequently, the bus drivers will get fed up of kids misbehaving and order all the schoolkids, even the well-behaved ones, off the bus. They're frequently penalised for being late to school for factors completely out of their control - train delayed, bus terminates, overcrowding, roads unexpectedly closed - and they mostly take it philosophically and in good spirits. It's not necessarily what I'd want for my kids long-term (mine are littlies atm) but the kids deal with it and enjoy their freedom. I wouldn't want a child of mine, especially age 11-12, doing this commute without a phone though - too many things that can and do go wrong!

Shares location if necessary, can be used for bus tickets etc, can transfer money to their phone if they need it in an emergency...

That's awful, some kids will need their phones for safety and travel purposes.

Smart phones in particular are convenient if need to travel on public transport or share their location etc so I wouldn't be ok with them only being allowed basic phones either.

My kids school blocks the signal somehow so they can't really use their phones in school. There are a few spots that they can get signal on the grounds but generally they can't use them.

That’s a ridiculous rule.

I’d honestly look at changing schools in this case

Perhaps parents' association should then propose to Head and Governors to fund them themselves. Budgets are far too tight for schools to afford.

Folk managed without mobiles for a very long time. This absolute dependence on them isn't necessary.

mine was flat recently and my work car broke down. The shop I asked wouldn’t let me use their phone, they’d heard a scam apparently.

I would really like to see an experiment where a teenager goes into a selection of high street shops and asks to use the phone. Honestly I would. I wonder how I’m how many they would be successful.

My DH found himself in this position a couple of years ago and Tesco let him use their phone to call me. He was in his late 50s, though.

So why not a flip phone? (Or brick phone, whatever). Why does it have to be a smart phone?

He only has to move a certain distance from it and it beeps. Playing football for example he’ll be in the other side of the pitch and it starts.

It’s not a social point I was making though - it was one of safety and just being able to have it and use it before or after school if necessary. Or for parents to leave a message saying “can you wait 15 mins at the corner, I’m gonna be late”

I live in a city and am racking my brain trying to think of the nearest call box!

I’m not sure I agree with this analogy tbh. Bikes add a lot more use to a child’s life than a smartphone (as opposed to a flip phone which is actually useful, and safe). Smartphones actually take more away from kids than the pluses of any benefits they offer, in my opinion. “When you give your kid a smartphone you don’t give them access to the world, you give the world access to your kid”. (Obviously health issues which rely on smartphone technology excepted.) There is no good reason why they need internet browsers/apps/instant messaging etc which are proven to show them harm. I think a better analogy would be smoking which everyone did to start with and then when they realised how harmful it was there was restrictions put in place. Same with cars/seatbelts.

Bring back pagers 🤣🤣

There aren’t any call boxes!

You live in a city not rural, so there will be call boxes or in an emergency businesses your child can go into.

I would really like to see an experiment where a teenager goes into a selection of high street shops and asks to use the phone. Honestly I would. I wonder how I’m how many they would be successful.
We are not in some dreamy hazy land of the 1960’s / 70’s where the majority of adults are caring and open and a ‘shop keeper’ would feel some responsibility. Firstly most shops won’t have phones at the till. No shop worker is going to invite a child behind the counters into the back to use the phone- that’s even if they have a landline! Most won’t and it will be a shop mobile. The shop workers today either wouldn’t care or more likely not view it as safe to hand over the shop / personal mobile to a stranger. Just won’t happen.
Some people really are living in cloud cuckoo land on this thread!

Don't be ridiculous.

You’d think if the school has time to search any bag that sets off a metal detector, they’d have time to lock away the phones, to be honest.

I’m amazed the kids haven’t started ensuring they have something metal in their bags to waste as much time as possible at the start of school.

Which is why phone lockers would work at entrances.

Did we? I didn't. They were almost always unusable due to being vandalised.

Yet again, we had easy access to payphones then. That is no longer the case.

Many schools have no lockers at all for the kids these days. Ours didn't. They'd been taken out a few years previously by the time mine got there and have never been replaced.

Our secondary banned all smart watches about 3 years ago. Heard others have as well in the area.