To be annoyed by total phone ban

Or the school should adapt their rules seeing as their rules mean that some kids can't have their phones at other integral parts of the day such as when they are travelling to and from school, when having a phone is often important and can help to keep them safe.

This railway sign makes me laugh. The station information board doesn't mention payphones. I think the nearest payphone is about a mile and half away.

I've tried to Google payphone locations can find any public resources just a private site wanted £2.99 for every seach.

https://www.beatxp.com/blog/can-we-call-from-smartwatch/#:~:text=Yes%2C%20you%20can%20make%20and,smartwatches%20that%20have%20cellular%20connectivity.

• Official/formal complaint? Explain your child NEEDS phone for transport and safety? If head doesn’t listen go to parent governors?
• Other parents must also feel the same? I’m sure they’d be forced to listen if 100 parents put in official complaints!
• Could he wear his phone in a phone belt round his waist? Surely they don’t do body searches? My daughters phone is a medical device so this ban wouldn’t apply to her thankfully, and she can’t through metal detectors !

maybe the kids all need to stand out the front of school and refuse to go in and do a peaceful protest… or as others have suggested maybe hundreds of parents need to start calling the office asking for messages to be forwarded to their child saying they won’t be home and they need to go to uncle pats instead
etc…
As for the school not returning the phone at the end of the day, surely that’s theft?
Wonder what will happen to a student before they change this rule… a concerned parent/parents calling police when a child doesn’t come home on time… or if a child doesn’t arrive to school?… school ring parents and parents say ‘I can’t contact or track their whereabouts because they don’t have a phone!’

Other thought, do Apple Watches with their own SIM card send and receive messages? I think my ex could make calls from his?!

There are still things people can do to try to mitigate the damage though.

For example, even getting a group of like minded parents in a collective to stop their own group of children from having smart phones at least until an older age, would go some way to making those children not feel they were the odd ones out for not having one.

😂😂 pay phone?? I haven’t seen a public pay phone in my area for at least a decade!

Because then school will be responsible for 100’s of phones, and if one gets stolen?!

Sadly, in relation to a Smartphone free childhood, the horse has bolted and destroyed the stable door in the process.

Nobody knew how damaging they were going to be until it was too late.

How old is your child?
What would you have done if able to reach child on phone? Was it the not knowing where they were that bothered you the most? Don't you think your child is able to navigate transport issues without a phone? Given the no phone situation at school, rather than go down the hiding route ending in lengthy detentions, I think you'd better teach your child how to cope without a phone. This will only make them MORE resourceful and you too might learn how to navigate without a phone in 2024 - I think it is still possible.

Teach your child how to use an A to Z you can even buy pocket versions they can keep in their school bag - if this is too laughable a suggestion;
Look up alternative routes online together so that they have a plan to refer to when transport issues arise.

PPs mentioned why school has banned smart phones.

Read; The Anxious generation by Dr Jonathan Haidt

Check out
https://smartphonefreechildhood.co.uk/

Not in itself but it can be used as an excuse to get their hands on your phone and then they can scam you.

It probably isn't a thing now but a while ago a scam used to be to borrow your phone for a call and they would set your phone to call via a premium rate number. It was only at the end of the month when a huge bill came through that people were aware

No, but it is a known distraction tactic. One asks for help while the other tries to steal the victim's phone/handbag etc

So your kids are OK, - are you saying the statistics connecting mental health to technology are made up?

Is asking directions seen as a scam now?!

It's not something that would bother me

This is absolutely not true. See the below extract from the Department of Education 'Searching, Screening and Confiscation Advice for Schools'

"Headteachers and staff they authorise have a statutory power to search a pupil or their possessions where they have reasonable grounds to suspect that the pupil may have a prohibited item listed in paragraph 31 or any other item that the school rules2 identify as an item which may be searched for"

There's another one they can use online banking and have their card on Google Wallet / Apple Pay from 13 too.

Those things I don't mind but I do think big companies should have more responsibility for children under 16 on what they listen to and what they have access too.

I also believe that age 13 law is flow down from the EU.

At the moment UK laws put control into children's hands at the age of 13, ie that's the the they are legally allowed to have social media. They legally need to consent to parental controls on the device and they can disable them.

There are other things related to that law.

Maybe the most logical answer is to up that age to 15 or 16.

However you cannot put the genie back in the bottle the genie is out. Schools are using apps for all sorts of things, Inc homework (Google Classroom, MS Teams). Some of that will have been pushed along with covid restrictions but its where we are and where the future is going.

Children do not NEED a fucking mobile phone in school. Indeed, children (under 16 anyway,) don't need a mobile phone at all.

Some do, in fact. For medical reasons. A small number, admittedly, but blanket statements like these need correcting.

Is it a society wide problem of is it just that as technology has progressed everything has adapted around it? . It seems to me that schools need to do the same thing and find a way of making sure pupils have access to phones when they leave the school. Some schools manage it.

If simply contacting someone was the answer to why they need phones, they could all have a brick phone, sorted. It’s the epidemic of addiction to smartphones that is the problem, and the reason why schools are having to consider their policies.

It might be more helpful to phrase the debate as ‘do children need smartphones/do smartphones do more harm than good’?

I would say they don’t need them, and that we’re sleep walking into a nightmare. And I say that as someone who has let both my eldest have them (at 12ish). And they use them too much. I’m prepared to admit I’m probably fucking up as a parent.

I could have worded that better but you know the point I was making

My driving licence is an integral part of my life. If I break the rules it gets taken from me.

So many parents seems to do all they get to stop their own children from learning the key life lesson that rule breaking can have negative consequences.

@Hateam : Do we too get our phones confiscated if we use Mn too much? 

I am well aware that there is a widespread MH crisis among teens, that needs looking into, but my 2 older ds's don't have MH issues, and they have not been upset/bothered by SM usage to date, so I'm ok atm. Like @Missamyp no problems, no bullying, no problems. If you have a child who is, that changes things.