To wonder what the ban on smartphones across 17 schools in South London will acheive.

👍!

We told DT’s if they ever got their phones confiscated by school, they would be confiscated at home.

This - it ought to be standard. I’ve heard of schools where they make the parents come and collect the confiscated phone - an added inducement to stick to the rules!

They already have this....

Yes, schools should do this not the people who brought them into the world 🤣

DT’s school banned use on school grounds - during lessons and breaks. If caught the phone was confiscated until after school on Friday.

Banning meaning they can't take them into school at all? or they have to be turned off and not used?

I don't agree with the first, I do the second.

The HT of one of the London academies said it has less to do with phone use in school and more to do with all the evidence that owning one of these phones is causing damage to children. It's about their holistic wellbeing, not whether they text in class.

Of course. I would expect common sense to prevail. But noted there are those saying 'there is no good reason' a phone is needed. There are good reasons.

DS’s HT is dreadful in many ways (Covid denier, appalling attitude to students with disabilities and borderline offensive to families that aren’t wealthy), but the phone policy they have is a good one.

They have an out of sight/out of earshot policy. If a phone is seen or heard it’s confiscated (and if a pupil refuses confiscation it’s an internal detention) and returned at the end of the day. The second time it’s confiscated then a parent has to collect it.

It’s massively inconvenient for parents so now parents are the ones on at their children not to have their phone confiscated. That’ll be even more of an issue next year as the school bus passes are going to be app only.

The reason for this is the inability/unwillingness of some parents to monitor what their children are accessing and doing on smartphones and on social media.

This. Technology is here to stay.

Obviously there would be exceptions, use your common sense.

@sunshine237 that's fine then.
Advising is fine.
Schools should have -
All children and parents sign a contract when joining a school.
Contract should be -
Have a hand them in or no see/no hear rule.
Confiscation if rules aren't followed.
Leading to further punishments if the rules carry on being broken.

Agree. I also use a separate handheld scanner for mine

Then you're not on a closed loop system which many children and young people now are (omnipod 5 with dexcom 6). Dexcom 6 doesn't come with a scanner (although there may be one available, I am not sure), you just use your phone with it.

They're not dictating, they are advising - attempting to create a positive culture around not having a smartphone. It's not just about your daughter. The harms to all children are well evidenced.

@sunshine237 I am happy for a school to have a rule that they aren't used in school (either handed in each day or no see/no hear)
but I don't think a school should dictate whether or not I choose to let my daughter have access to a smartphone.
She uses hers for a lot of positive things.

Hasn't this thread missed the point a bit? Yes phones should be completely banned in all schools. But the south London schools (and St Albans) are actually asking parents to get on board with this and not give smartphones to the kids at all until year 10. It's about changing the culture, like with other things we now know are bad for kids.

Of course many will ignore this and it will take time, but hopefully something will start to change. I think year 10 is quite ambitious, but given it all seems to start in year 4 at my kids' school (8 & 9yos!) anything would be an improvement! There are also options between no and phone at all, and a smartphone, and I think these will increase over the next few years.

My sons school found phone confiscation was more trouble than it was worth. So now, if your phone is seen or heard on school property, it's immediate lunchtime detention. Second offence immediate after school detention.

Works well for us. They have their phone for journey to / from school, my sons can contact me after school if they're not coming straight home, they have google pay if they want a drink from a shop on the way home (we moved to this as they would lose bank cards constantly!), and can listen to music on their headphones during the journey too.

The "workaround" arguement was used when banning under 18s from smoking and drinking among other stuff. I'm sure if heroin had previously been legal for kids people would still argue it.
Makes me laugh obviously banning things won't stop every kid finding a way to do something but it certainly makes it harder for them, usually people who oppose it work in some industry like tobacco etc

@N4ish @AllProperTeaIsTheft well yes that's a perfect and obvious solution.
At form group registration each day children hand over their phones and they are locked away.
At the end of the day have another form group session where they are handed back out.
If a child doesn't hand over the phone and they are caught using it - it gets taken off them.
But this whole argument is about schools banning them completely.

It’s a good idea and I hope it catches on. Our school used to have yonder pouches. After several incidents of stuff at school being filmed and put on social media, the main being a fight where a girl was set upon by several other girls. It was horrific. I mean it got the girls involved in a lot of trouble but was also traumatising for the girl involved.

Ok then....
What we (society) need to have a ban like this in place is -
Bus tickets should either be a smart card or a "school pass" card.
More public payphones.
No homework to be set via an app.
Until that's in place then I don't think schools can ban smart phones.

What has that got to do with banning phones in school hours? Saying they should be switched off in the bottom of bags is not enough - students have them on silent and get them out sneakily, or in the toilets. Imo the only answer (cumbersome though it is) is to hand over phones on arrival at school and get them back at the end of the day. Some will still get around it by handing in an old phone though.

I don’t think it’s the schools responsibility to contract with parents what happens in their homes.

Yet those parents will expect the school to get involved in solving the problems that they, the parents, have allowed to happen! School have become society's whipping boy.