To be annoyed by total phone ban

I wonder if the policy is related to phone theft?

Young secondary age school children are being targeted in my Borough at present and this idea is being floated in a few schools (total ban on phones until Year 10 is the suggestion I've seen for at least two schools, it's not been implemented though!!)

When I was little my brother was badly beaten after school by his bullies. My parents only got to his rescue because his friend ran to the nearest phone box and knew our home number off by heart to call my mum. If that sort of situation happened now, there would be no phone boxes and no one would know any phone numbers off by heart. The world has adapted to everyone having mobile phones, the school is being very unsafe by acting like it’ll be fine because we all did it in the old days. I would raise a complaint on safety grounds and keep taking it further if they ignore you.

At dc's school phones are put in a lockable pouch on arrival and unlocked as they leave. If phone is seen out during the day it's confiscated and parents have to collect. I think this is fine.

We're quite rural and there are often problems with buses - I would not be happy with a total ban for this reason, and can understand why you're not @TeleGardenGnome.

Do they let dc who have bluetooth blood sugar monitors and such have their phones?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/21/the-anxious-generation-by-jonathan-haidt-a-pocket-full-of-poison
This book is interesting, advocates a total bsn in schools

Is there a newsagent near the school? Back in the day a lot of criminal courts didn't allow you to bring phones in so all the lawyers/reporters would leave their phones with the nearest newsagent for a small fee

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.

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.

I live in north London now. I am with the school on this one, though I probably disagree with some of the other rigidity the OP mentions. Assuming it has been clear from the start and not suddenly introduced mid-year.

Good for you but lots of people don’t have a choice!

Grammarnut you are not comparing like with like. I managed to get home on 2 or three buses from my rural secondary school without a mobile phone. But I was able to use phone boxes to call my mum at work if I knew I wouldn't be back when she was home. A few times when I didn't do that she would have to come looking for me in the car. Once when my sister got confused about what she was supposed to be doing she got a lift home to someone else's house and my parents thought she had been kidnapped when she wasn't at the pre-arranged place at the right time. All hell broke loose and the police were called and everything.

There is much more traffic around in London now than there was even 20 years ago (when again there would be phone boxes) meaning that transport is less reliably on time than it would have been then. Additionally whether you like it or not, the culture is that children are given less independence and less trust by people in general now than they were then (almost impossible to get a job before 16 now, for example) so it is much harder to be a teenager in the wild without being viewed with suspicion or worry and people don't help you so readily. treating them as if the world hasn't changed is not helping them, it's actually making them more helpless and leading to situations where they can more easily get into trouble.

When was the last time you saw a working payphone on a street corner for emergencies? Times have changed since we were kids.

I agree with you OP. DD is 12 and in her secondary, phones are switched off and in bags all day. It works fine as far as I know - not heard of any problems - they are not allowed to use them at school between school hours, so she turns is on as she leaves. She is autistic and walks to and from school on her own - she sometimes contacts me on the way home, sometimes a club changes or she's forgotten her key. She gets a bit anxious and panicky. If she didn't have a phone, she would be a lot less happy going out on her own.

Not all 11 year olds have bank cards. And ones like Go Henry have a fee.

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.

They’ll still get metal detected

Again, as lots of people have explained, the world is different in lots of ways, in part because there is a widespread expectation that people will carry their own phones. My secondary school had payphones to call home, so it wasn't the case that there was no way of contacting a parent.

I remember once my bus home - the only bus, because I lived in a small village - just didn't turn up. I waited, alone as I was the only person from my secondary school who lived in my village, for a while and then went to the office of the bus station. I used their phone to ring home and when no one answered because mum wasn't yet home from work they paid for a taxi to take me home! All of that - a manned office in the bus station that allowed people to use its phone, a bus company that was so easily contactable and saw a stranded 12 year old as its responsibility - sounds like fiction now. It was 1998.

My niece’s school allows “dumb phones” that text and call and not much else. They were having real problems with pupils videoing teachers and whatsapping each other so consulted with parents and found a compromise. No smartphones or phones with internet or cameras allowed. It’s really helped with bullying and general learning too as in a lot of cases it’s now the only phone the kids have so they’re not spending hours on Snapchat, TikTok etc outside of school time.

Ah right, OK, I guess there are dangerous people in all professions, although thankfully very rare

Things don't change. We have a generation that is certain it needs to be in contact with everyone all the time. Society functioned perfectly well without this. And child abductions have not decreased because children have mobile phones, nor has bullying etc. We don't need this constant connection and it is harming us having it.

I guess expecting the worst may mean you get pleasantly surprised

Look up Moria Anderson.
It's never been proven but its widely believed her abducter was the bus driver.

That's what secondary schools are. I was looking at detention list for the school my kids is going to - so you are not allowed to talk in the corridor, walk in groups, or be "defiant". Also was told that in another school you get detention for picking stuff that's fallen on the floor or taking your eyes off the teacher. And you get shouted at during the detention. Its all shit, but sadly all schools are like this here.

So how would this have been managed before mobile phones? They are not as necessary as some would like us to think.

@Needanewname42 I imagine because all the other kids are standing there waiting to get their phone and after a couple of days they know whose phone is whose. Also if a phone were to go missing, they would know which group of children had access to it rather than the whole school. Seems to work.

They are caring for the next generation. Phones cause disruption. Some schools may manage with 'phones off and out of sight', but this is not always the case and then a phone ban is needed. It is part of expecting order in the corridors and silence whilst the teacher is talking, it's about educating the children.