3 day suspension for having phone out in school

Think it nonsense school having to purchase pouches. Phones in bags and not fetched out on school.premises. Phone out= phones confiscated. Phones cause so much issues in schools

@TooBored1 How do parents in a school do that? What mechanisms do you have to ensure any consultation is actually done at all? None. You are not at work and schools often take little notice of consultations if they don’t want to. Parents have little or no influence and, guess what, you won’t all agree. As here some with think 3 days is just fine.

Ive already said I misread the op. Apologies

I can see the rationale for having a high stakes sanction - temptation to break the rules is probably high (kids literally addicted to phones) and chances of getting away with it (sneakily checking your phone at break) also quite high. So a 3 day exclusion really demonstrates that however tempting and however easy it would be to break the rule, you don’t want to go there.

Schools tie themselves in knots. One minute making an unholy fuss about dental and medical appointments and the irreversible harm missing a half day session has on education. Next minute handing out 3 day suspensions left and right.

I've no problem with the no-phone rule (as long as it also applies to staff, to set a good example) but 3 days is too much. Perhaps it would help if they would show the sanction list so it is possible to compare against other sanctions - if this is a parent consultation, I would ask them to share that information. A detention would make sense. Our school currently just tells you off for having it out, and it's taken until a parent collects it, though tbf there's not much you can do with a phone there as it's in the middle of nowhere with no available signal, so the worst they could do is probably take photos.

Yes but back in the day there were public phone boxes and buses accepted cash.
Now both of those are rare.
Children also used to mostly go to their nearest school. That also doesn't happen now. Many are travelling for miles.

Children have been travelling to and from school without the need for mobile phones before the technology even existed.

Who cares how long the punishment is for. It pretty much irrelevant. A school is trying to ensure they are phone free and need to make it black and white.

Stop undermining the principle of having a rule and live with the consequences. Tell your child it is zero tolerance and get used to it. Bravo to your childs school

My DD's school made it very clear in all the pre-admission paperwork and the HT's talk that phones were permitted in school, but if any member of staff heard or saw it, it would be confiscated and kept under lock and key until a parent came in person, in school hours, by appointment to collect it. It worked very well.

Not IN school but many need them for getting to and from school.
Which is why schools shouldn't ban them from being in school completely but they should be switched off and in the child's bag.

This.

Do kids need phones in schools? I understand it's a new phenomenon and the norm nowadays, but young children really don't need phones in schools.

@PansyPotter84 The punishment here is 3 days exclusion. You have cited detention. Vastly different. What do you think of 3 days exclusion? Proportionate and reasonable or not?

Not unreasonable at all.

My sister is a secondary teacher.

Until they implemented a similar ban on phones being seen out or ringing, the kids were getting uncontrollable and distracted.

Bullying was becoming rife with kids filming each other and teachers and the videos being put online.

There was also sexting, dick pics and upskirting going on.

The school went nuclear to cure all this and it has worked.

The punishment is detention plus the phone is confiscated until the end of the week and has to be collected by parent or guardian.

It’s the only way to stop kids being distracted from learning.

@Needmorelego I stand corrected. The phone policy must be tied into the sanctions policy though. And yes, 3 days is ludicrous if it’s a first offence. They cannot have separate policies for sanctions and essentially, getting the phone out is behaviour.

@TizerorFizz
"He’s been given 3 days off for something though! I assume not obeying instructions?"

The OPs child hasn't been suspended for 3 days. She says this is the schools potential punishment for using a phone. It's not the rule yet.

@TooBored1 He’s been given 3 days off for something though! I assume not obeying instructions?

You also don’t understand consultations. You don’t get a say! They just read what the respondents reply to probably very general questions. They might inform the policy but I doubt it. It’s likely the same policy will be in all the Mats schools so what chance have your views got? None.

There is already a behaviour policy with sanctions. They must have one because it’s a legal requirement. They have applied this - probably unfairly. It’s not linked to a phone policy specifically (they don’t have one) but it’s going to set out expected behaviour and punishment for not meeting expectations. I assume you have read it.

You are getting a flavour of what the new phone policy will be but the behaviour policy, and sanctions within it, will take precedence over the phone policy when it comes to punishment. Ultimately the sanctions policy is applied by the head regarding suspensions and the reason can be what behaviour they deem unacceptable. So taking the phone out, when the request is not to, is a behaviour breach. Although, in my view, and yours, a minor one.

Such a great shame your schools have been taken over by learning factories staffed by robots.

Thank you everyone, this has been highly illuminating, not least because I am shocked at how many people don't believe it is the right/duty of a parent to enter into a reasonable, respectful dialogue with school over rules, policies and punishments.

You are within your rights to contact them about it, but they absolutely don't have to take any notice of your opinion. They certainly don't have to have a dialogue with you about it. They decide their rules. You can vote with your feet if you don't like their rules.