To be annoyed by total phone ban

Shops aren't even likely to allow people to borrow their phones anymore. And the days of corner shops having pay phones in a plastic bubble are gone to.

If something happens, child loses their purse no money to get home, what do people honestly expect a random stranger or shop worker to do about it?

We live in a world where people are very wary of being scammed.

I was on a train recently when a teen asked for money from his fare. Feeling on the spot I gave him the money. After he got of their was a conversation between me and 3 other randoms - was he genuine or was it a scam?

It was a different era of course we survived

My point was that we survived without mobile phones and that was not because we could all borrow a phone in a shop, but because we were taught carefully who to approach if in trouble. A mobile phone won't stop your DCs getting into a mess, or help them out of some of them. What is needed is teaching what to do if one misses the bus etc. If the bus is missed and if they are still at school the place of contact is the school office. Reliance on technology is not reliable - awareness of time (watch?) and of safe ways to get home (not a lift with friend's parent!) when there is a problem. If DCs do not understand that then all the mobiles in the world will not help. NB Outside the MC it was rare to have a phone at home in the 60s and 70s. We were taught to come straight home, unless there was another arrangement (going to a friends, sports event at school etc - my mother came to the school when I was late, once. I had gone to watch a netball match - and school did not know I had no permission. Huge row! Didn't do that again!)

Not sure what your point is really. Obviously if your parents couldn't afford a home phone and there was no one else you could contact there is nothing that they could do. It doesn't make it ideal though and I am sure your parents would have been very worried if you were an hour late getting home and they didn't know why.

I took two buses, crossing London. There was no option to phone home, we did not have a phone. Child abductions were no more frequent than now. Also I, and my brothers, had it drummed into us that we did not talk to strangers, did not accept sweets and lifts from people AT ALL. If in doubt look for a woman for help (Myra Hindley was a major exception) or go to a person in a shop, or find a policeman (who were around, on foot). What was infrequent was small children not having a mother, or someone, at home. I am not suggesting that the ability of women to go out to work is bad, but I do notice the surveys that suggest up to 80% of women with young children would prefer to stay at home or work part-time. Policy is driven by the 20% who have careers, rather than jobs, who think all women must be like them and want to put their children into nursery asap after birth to get back to their proper and more interesting jobs.

Just follow the rules, they're there for a good reason.

This is it, my daughter (10) has a phone as she walks to and from school, and they hand it in at reception. My son (13) has one that is turned off the whole time, he'd be too scared of getting in trouble to use it during the day. The main reason I want them to have them is for the school walk. My son's school are very strict on phones, and from what he says they rarely have to implement a confiscation.

I think back in the day being rude to teachers would have been corporal punishment.
Children just wouldn't dare.
Exclusion was also a thing.

Education was valued, more so than today. That's a society problem though. The lack of hope doesn't help.

Up until the 70s and 80s there was a reasonable amount of work. People would get work in the local factory, mine, steelworks or whatever.
Parents wanted their kids to get the better jobs which was only going to happen 'if you stuck in at school'.
Those big places closed, taking a bunch of smaller employers with them.

Now it's either NMW or going to Uni
If you aren't uni material then there isn't much hope.

I have a letter from my grandfather to my grandmother (who was away seeing her ailing mother), blaming Grandmother's absence for my Aunt getting in trouble with some local man. Aunt would have been about 12-13 years old. It was 1935, and the letter isn't specific but I think alcohol was involved. No social media influence need apply. Oh the wickedness of absent mothers!
I'm sure your aunt wasn't spitting at teachers, throwing chairs at them and calling them fat cunts. Obviously she wouldn't have been able to video it like the kids do now.
I'm dealing with teenagers that are being suspended and excluded from school for this and much more.
I'm so sad at seeing girls aswell as lads being goaded into fights and it being uploaded on to snap chat and YouTube
I'm worn down with dealing with the fall out of young girls being forced or feel like they have to send nudes of themselves and really feel for them when the shame of these picture go round the peer group. They usually have to leave and go to a PRU until the fuss dies down.
This is only a tiny part of issues caused by mobiles in schools or on their way hime
To me mobile phones in schools do cause a lot problems.

Gosh, in the 1970s & 1980s, what did everyone blame bad pupil behaviour on then? My classrooms certainly were full of misbehaving kids. TV? Drugs? Walking to school alone? Working mothers?

I'm calling Placebo effect at JessyRad's phone-ban school.

I have a letter from my grandfather to my grandmother (who was away seeing her ailing mother), blaming Grandmother's absence for my Aunt getting in trouble with some local man. Aunt would have been about 12-13 years old. It was 1935, and the letter isn't specific but I think alcohol was involved. No social media influence need apply. Oh the wickedness of absent mothers!

It's not about looking after the property, is it? It's removing the distraction and behavioural issue during the school day and reducing how much kids come to rely on the hit they get from their mobile phones.

And tbh I think your risk analysis is way off. What's an easier target for theft by a teenager - the pocket of a blazer or a school bag left lying somewhere while its owner is having a kick around at break, or a huge clunky and very obvious box that's kept somewhere a bit more secure?

I've just dug out the letter the school sent when they confirmed the trial was being made permanent - some excerpts below.

Since the launch of the digital detox we have seen a dramatic decrease in the number of behaviour incidents relating to and/or heightened as a result of phone usage during school time. For example, fewer/no cases of students filming or messaging each other during lesson time or incidents of students being unkind via social media or distracting each other when in lessons.

^Whilst we know, it was different for us when we were growing up, young people are having to navigate through an unfamiliar, unpredictable social world, which is constantly changing. Mobile phone usage is a national concern. Our students are developing habits that allow them to understand ‘It’s going to be okay, if you do not check your phone’.

Notably, teachers have reported that they have seen a vast improvement in students' focus and attention within the classroom and this has resulted in there being a positive learning environment in the classroom.

I'm sure the school would rather just ban phones altogether to make it simpler for themselves. But they recognise that we live in a world where there are many reasons parents might want kids to have phones on the way to and from school, so this is their compromise. You can bring a phone to school, but you can't have it on you during the school day (apart from exceptions of true individual need.) If you bring a phone, this is what happens to it during the school day. Don't like it? Don't send your kid with a phone.

I know quite a few schools that are taking an similar approach now. Interestingly even the older kids I've spoken to seem to think it's a good idea.

Schools can give themselves less work by telling children to look after their own property.

Schools taking phones or any other items of kids is ludicrous. The more I think about it the stupider I think it is.

Just scrolling a bit mindlessly and reading and had a sudden image of people coming on MN complaining about all the tweens and teens who want to use their phone to call home everytime a train or bus is cancelled. In London that could be a large number of kids effected by a single cancellation, especially if other school's do the same ban. I can't imagine many adults being happy the 10th time a secondary school kid asks to use their phone in an hour, as some PPs suggested they should do in a fix.

Well, parents can solve the issue by not sending their kids in with an expensive phone, then.

UK parents are so bloody entitled and stroppy, it's no wonder teachers are leaving the profession in droves.

Like I said, I don't know what the situation with insurance is or the details of how they administer it including insurance, storage of the boxes, etc. It's how the school runs things and if I want my child to take a phone to school with him, this is the condition under which we do it. If people aren't happy with that, then I assume they just don't let their child take their phone to school.

Any personal possessions I send to school with my child are at our risk, not the school's. I'm not stupid enough to give my child a ridiculously expensive phone; if other parents are then that's a risk they're assuming for themselves.

TBH I'm pretty happy that his phone is safer, less liable to loss and damage and more secure in a locked padded box than in his school bag or his pocket. As far as I'm concerned they're doing me a favour on that count as well as removing phones during school time - with all the issues people have mentioned above.

Well I'd certainly be asking the questions if it was may kids properly that was getting taken off them. A box of 30 phone's is bound to be a target for theft or vandalism. Theres bound to be a few seriously high value phones in each box.
If the box is emptied or taken completely whos insurance is covering it?

Do the kids get given a receipt to prove they've handed the phone over daily? If a phone goes missing in the schools possession how do you prove the phone was handed it?

What safe guarding is there for each teacher to make sure they don't get falsely accused of theft? Either phones not handed in but kid claims they handed it over?

Ive just reread your post, phones are handed in at your own risk. Wtf. No way should that be happening without the school carrying proper insurance. The total value is each box must be thousands. Its not like they are low cost items that are easily replaced. I dont think id would want responsibility for a box of phones at work.
Its not like jackets or jumpers that are fairly low cost phones are blinking expensive.

The issue with phones isn't phones, or many of the utility type apps, nobody is spending hours on checking Google Classroom, National Rail Enquiries or McDonald's app.

The places people loose hours is, social media, Facebook, tic-toc, snapchat, youtube those apps need to be more heavily regulated.

I think most of those are questions for the school, not me as a parent.

I do know (and have seen) the lock boxes they're stored in.

We're asked to fill in a form at the start of the year saying whether our child regularly brings a phone to school and what make/model it is.

As far as I'm aware they don't catalogue type or condition. We're aware that phones are brought to school at our own risk - the same as if phones are in pockets or bags.

I'm sure there are still kids who try to break the rules. But the feedback from the school - at least the teachers I've spoken to as well as the messaging from the head - is that in the two years since they have taken this approach, they have found it beneficial. I'm grateful for it.

Just as society has in recent years created concepts like “The right to privacy” “The right to repair,” “The right to be forgotten” and so on, maybe we also need to consider something akin to “The right to function in society without a smartphone.”

What I mean by that is that society needs to think very carefully about heading down a path where it becomes impossible for people do anything - pay for stuff, use public transport, whatever - without a smartphone.

It risks creating a situation where either preteens and teens MUST be given smartphones with permanent access to them (and the evidence on this being a bad idea are only continuing to pile up) OR having zero independence outside the home, which is also a bad idea, as it stunts their development and increases the burden on parents. It’s also like to increase phone addiction among adults, and the evidence on that is only continuing to mount as well. It’s daft for society to moan vaguely about the societal effects of everyone constantly having a smartphone in their hand, getting it out ever 2 secs, endless fiddling and message-checking, while at the same time sleepwalking into a situation where it ends up being impossible to basically leave the phone without the fucking thing and you HAVE to get it out and look at it a million times a day.

Society must, IMO, ensure with every process that goes on that there is always a non-smartphone alternative to stuff. Dumb phones with no internet access must continue to exist and be available. Public transport must not offer smartphones as the only way to pay - if they want to go cashless, fine, but cards should be offered as an option too. Ditto payments of various kinds.

There is currently a bigger push (compared to five years ago) to really look into the effects of 24/7 smartphone availability on kids, so these things need to be unpicked and discussed at the policy level.

Keeping in mind 30 phones at an average of £400 a time, is £12,000.
Where does the form teacher store them, its a heck of a lot of value to have in a desk drawer?
Are they insured while in the schools possession?
How do they catalogue the type and condition of each phone?
How do they know the kids are handing in their real phone and not a 2nd old phone?

Yes well, it is called “homework”, but they get time during classes to work on it. And sometimes they have special hours to work on the homework together in school. So it is crucial to have access to it at school.

It is very frustrating that they do this. Some people are doing home school just to their children a chance away from computers.