To be annoyed by total phone ban

Some of us lived in a pre-mobile phone world. We survived

Why can’t the school just collect them in at morning registration and the kids get them back at home time? That’s what ds school does.

Several hours to get home?

Do you have a closer school?

Presumably you knew this policy when he started in school? Or is this a new policy?

Either way these are the rules. Your DS knows the rules and yet he still had a phone in his bag. Tough on him.
If you have an old phone you can throw a free sim in (giff gaff for example) and he can be contacted that way.

My child's school which is a busy city location has a total phone ban. So you aren't allowed to take any type of phone to school at all even if it stays hidden in a bag and is on silent and never used. They do bag searches and use metal detectors to find students breaking the rules.

If your child's phone is found they get a detention and you can only get it back by visiting the school in person.

So yesterday my child's phone was found in a bag search and removed. There were awful transport issues and it took them several hours to get home. In the meanwhile we had no way to contact each other.

I can't get the phone back due to work and my husband being away for work. It just stresses me out that he won't be able to get in touch if there's a problem. Expressing my feelings here as there is no point complaining to the school. They don't listen to parental feedback.

My child's school which is a busy city location has a total phone ban. So you aren't allowed to take any type of phone to school at all even if it stays hidden in a bag and is on silent and never used. They do bag searches and use metal detectors to find students breaking the rules.

If your child's phone is found they get a detention and you can only get it back by visiting the school in person.

So yesterday my child's phone was found in a bag search and removed. There were awful transport issues and it took them several hours to get home. In the meanwhile we had no way to contact each other.

I can't get the phone back due to work and my husband being away for work. It just stresses me out that he won't be able to get in touch if there's a problem. Expressing my feelings here as there is no point complaining to the school. They don't listen to parental feedback.

You don't need a smartphone to use public transport

I went to school in the 80s and 90s. Teachers have always spent time managing poor behaviour and self entitled parents. These didn’t occur with mobile phones.

Parents should absolutely be managing their kids behaviour. As most do.

But what is you want those of us to about those that don’t? I have no clue who those kids are or their parents. I know ds’s close friends parents. They don’t get in trouble.

Theres 200 kids in ds year. I don’t drop him off or pick up. How would inventory the child the question, then the parents, then track them down to ‘shame them’?

and if would have done that at primary school pick up or drop off, the school would have told me I shouldn’t be doing that and if there’s a problem it should go through them.

And would no doubt add on half an hour either side of the school day for this to happen.

Why can’t the school just collect them in at morning registration and the kids get them back at home time? That’s what ds school does.

As a taxpayer I fully support phone bans, if it means that teachers can spend time teaching, rather than managing bullying, sexting, angry self-entitled parents, etc. If contact is important, provide a payphone in the school.

But, and sorry to sound like a broken record, but what are the 'good' parents doing to change things, apart from complaining to the school? I get it that the minority spoil it for the majority, but teachers are damned if they do or don't.

By this I mean that if parents are willing and able to complain to teachers, then surely they can also put some effort into 'influencing' those parents who don't or won't or can't be bothered to discipline their kids.

Yes, I suppose I am meaning to say, "the good parents who care about this stuff should shame and make life difficult for those parents who don't". If that's bullying as well, so be it, but I am getting fed up of this.

Edit - and by this I mean that I'm not against mobile phones in schools per se, but parents should take some responsibility for the behaviour of their kids, like locking down their phones, monitoring what they do, etc.

As a taxpayer I fully support phone bans, if it means that teachers can spend time teaching, rather than managing bullying, sexting, angry self-entitled parents, etc. If contact is important, provide a payphone in the school.

But, and sorry to sound like a broken record, but what are the 'good' parents doing to change things, apart from complaining to the school? I get it that the minority spoil it for the majority, but teachers are damned if they do or don't.

By this I mean that if parents are willing and able to complain to teachers, then surely they can also put some effort into 'influencing' those parents who don't or won't or can't be bothered to discipline their kids.

Yes, I suppose I am meaning to say, "the good parents who care about this stuff should shame and make life difficult for those parents who don't". If that's bullying as well, so be it, but I am getting fed up of this.

Edit - and by this I mean that I'm not against mobile phones in schools per se, but parents should take some responsibility for the behaviour of their kids, like locking down their phones, monitoring what they do, etc.

Here it saves money to have your bus tickets on an app. I can buy ds in bulk and get a saving. He would need his phone to get to and from school.

I think total phone bans are ridiculous. Dds school had one and when she didn't turn up at home one night (just a few weeks into starting) I called the school and the receptionist asked me 'well have you called her phone?' I pointed out they had a ban on them. After that I sent her with it, switched off and in her bag.

Not sure I would be happy with metal detectors and bag searches though tbh. Is this normal in alot of schools? Ds goes to a big school in town and they dont do anything like that. They are really strict on phone use though.

I think phones are such a big part of life, it's ridiculous and there's so many reasons kids would need them on the way home. I would be speaking to school and pointing out the huge issues with this.

No, they are not trying to ban the internet. They are restricting minors' unsupervised access to the internet, which is not actually the same thing?

At the school I worked at, phones were collected in the mornings and taken to the office, then retrieved at the end of the day. If any child didn't put their phone in, there would be a consequence. Makes more sense that way.

Because during the last 20 years things have hugely changed for everyone -secondary school children included. The tools once used 20 years ago are not there now! Because everyone has a smart phone, the country is geared up for that now.
Honestly if your children became adults 20 years ago it may be hard to understand. If you yourself are still leading your life without a smartphone then you will be very very behind and out of touch with many parts of society.

I do wonder how I managed to cross London, using two buses, and sometimes diverting to the library on the way home (I doubt I told my DM I was doing that) or going to a book shop, without a mobile phone. I really don't understand how my two children crossed the county on a school bus to go to school, or how my DD managed two buses when the city would not provide the free transport she had been promised when living in the county. No mobile phones. It is only twenty years ago or less when all of this would be the case. We are breeding a generation of needy children.

Because schools are hopeless at enforcing boundaries and discipline so outright bans becomes the only way to enforce anything. If the phones are not there then it doesn't need to be enforced.