To be annoyed by total phone ban

Would be lucky to find one though they just don't exist in most places.

OP has made it more than clear that they don't do that.

Take the time off work if you need to deal with the school, why wouldn’t you? Your child’s safety is far more important than your job.

It's a ridiculous rule.
Where I am, the only way kids can have a bus ticket is to have an app/virtual ticket.
So they have a load of kids stranded with no way to get to school.

I'm not quite sure what the answer is here but certainly phones should returned at the end of the school day as the absence of them could be seen to pose a safeguarding risk.
Assuming there are a number of parents who feel the same then I'd suggest getting something in writing from a group of like-minded people which lay out the concerns etc. and take it to the board of governors of the school.

You make it sound as if thete was a box every 2 meters. Boxes were few and far between

Any kid who's changing buses are probably in a town with a phone box.

There are no phone boxes and many kids change buses in this city and nearby town - they tend to have phones to deal with any problem.

There's supposedly 20,000 working phone booths left in UK but I can't think of one in 5 nearby urban areas at all.

I don't personally agree with the rules. But the rules are known and enforced. So I am not sure complaining that they were enforced is reasonable per se !

They could ban smart phones.

You can still get the little ones that you can send texts or call on.

Surely the way forward is not stripping back school budgets to ridiculous levels.

Possible solutions:

GPS tracker so you know where your child it (not a phone obviously)

I think you can still buy pagers - they are not phones but you would be able to communicate with your child (if not him with you).

AirTag is the obvious but you say not Apple.

We'v got one coming in - youngest Y10.

We don't have the travel issues and mostly expect it will be fine in bag turned off. However school often pushes messages during day via their app and teams which kid snow won't see but this doesn't see to have been understood.

I assume samsug smart tags would help know where child is but won't help with communication with you. It does seem overkill form the school and journeys on public transport these days are fraught with unexpected problems but if they won't listen to parents not sure there is anything to be done.

I bet they'd have been others on a slight de-tour. I maybe only passed one on a similar walk but school had one, if I'd taken a couple of slight detours they'd have been others, one in the sports center, one in a shop, out side the sub-post office.

Any kid who's changing buses are probably in a town with a phone box.

Yep, it's really, really common in schools who don't want the disruption of phones.

Since the OP hasn't said they don't do that (I don't think) perhaps they do but she doesn't fancy that solution.

This will rarely happen. Can you get him to memorise your number and if it happens again ask a stranger to text or call you to tell you what has happened?

They should have lockers to put the phones during the day. Or have a phone box installed for the school children who need to phone their parents.
But on the whole I agree with no phones policy of schools. In fact children should be banned from using smart phones.

there really was not in many areas. There was one phone box half way through my 45 minute walk home from school.

Seems excessive action on the school's part. Has there been any consolation about this or reasoning for the rule change?
Sounds like the school can't be bothered to manage 'no phones ' in school - which imo is reasonable. Youngsters do need phones for travel before and after school, particularly with the number of transport issues.
Possibly contact the governors about it, as it is about a child's safety being put at risk travelling to and from school.
Whilst we use to manage without phones, life has changed since in so many ways and we've adapted to having mobiles. We can't just go back!

I'm another whose school takes this approach and it doesn't seem to be an issue. Taking them in and handing them back during form time seems to deal with the 1200 phones to one person at once concern 😂

Anyway the feedback from the school is that the teachers like this approach as much as parents do.

I'm assuming some schools won't want the responsibility if a phone was to go missing in their care?

I was thinking the same thing. That could easily be thousands of pounds worth. Who'd want to be responsible for making sure none are damaged (or accused of damaged) in the schools possession?

Feeling so old. From the era of no phones, no school phone, no home phones. Even if you used a pay phone many parents wouldn't have had a phone, and even if they did, some didn't have cars. We all survived, got home on foot or by bus. This was the countryside so no public transport either.

The school could install a pay phone. And for those, when I went to boarding school, we had to queue. The horror.