To feel relieved the school has now completely banned phones

I am also surprised by the posters who want to make all kids travel independently without access to any type of phone. I've never met anyone who holds that view IRL.

One of my kids had a Biff n Chip book with a tale of vandalised phone boxes, it seemed dated 10 years ago.
I couldn't think where our nearest was never-mind the second or third nearest

Such a good point re. ringing 999 👏. I hadn't thought of that, but you're absolutely right, needing to call because of being a victim of or witness to an unfolding emergency is SO important

I don't get it either, the crazy thing is we can't be far off the second generation to grow up with phones.
Those parents are going to be even less likely to support blanket phone bans than the older generation who didn't.

I asked on a previous thread when did phones become the norm for teens, the answer was early 2000s.
Those kids will now be mid 30s, some will have secondary aged kids.

This would put me off a school. I’m with your friend. I don’t understand this recent crop of threads, which bear little resemblance to real life with posters purporting that they have no idea why there would ever be a situation in which a pupil may need to use a phone out of school! If so many parents really didn’t want their secondary children to have a phone, they’d just not provide them with one! There’s a concern about social media, which most parents are concerned about, but that’s not the same thing. It’s just really really odd.

My mum used to get me to phone her at work to let her know I was home OK. She's retired 20 years and I still know her works number.

Kids doing things afterschool is completely legitimate reasons to have a phone.

As I say so many kids leave one house in the morning and go to another afterschool. I can only imagine how hard that must be especially if they need stuff and can't remember which house they've left it in.

My mum working full time and so wasn’t around but i still had to call her if I wasn’t coming back when expected. she would have gone mental if I didn’t and I wasn’t going to start lying to her if I hadn’t come home at my usual time.

I have to admit I do have to contact my children from time to time at school but I email them and they email me back. They both do a lot of sport so plans sometimes change about arrangements in an evening.

on the way home sometimes we message about odds and ends. I do find it useful. Life is so much busier than when I was a child and it helps for us to be able to communicate if issues in their journey home. I wouldn’t want them to not have their phone in their bag.

My daughter was chased home after school by a group of older teenage boys yelling antisemitic garbage at her and threatening to follow her home so they ‘know where to find you all’. She panicked and ran away from home and called me from a few streets away. She was genuinely terrified to come home. I will never ever send her out without a phone after that.

For pragmatic reasons - she has dance after school until 9pm 3 days a week. We carpool with a few families so sort out lifts and such around everyone’s other commitments. Obviously we’d never want her worried if one of her friends wasn’t there or there was an issue with the pickup or anything like that.

If she starts using her phone in class I would fully support the school confiscating it for me to pick up. She’d have serious consequences at home for being so stupid. But as long as she can to keep it away when she’s meant to be learning that’s the end of the school’s vote as far as I’m concerned.

I’m the exact same as you. My children are told to put their phones on do not disturb and into their school bag, not to hand them in.

I once called my daughters school to advise my oldest her sister had been rushed for emergency surgery and that she had to go to her aunts after school. The office didn’t pass the message on and she’d went home after school to an empty house!

Because the world is not the same now.

I had a free school bus that I could catch. Everyone in my area went to the same school so we all went together.

Also, my eldest dances after school three nights a week - I can’t be there to take her so she has to take herself. If she doesn’t arrive at dance then her teachers assume she’s just not coming. My husband and I wouldn’t know she hadn’t made it to where she needs to be until hours later. She also attends a high school where attendance is valued over health, they also had a lock down last year where all the kids were locked in their classroom store cupboards for hours. The only reason school let parents know about it was because some kids contacted their parents and let them know. The school then tried to lie and say it wasn’t a lockdown.

basically what I’m hearing is that you’re too weak to parent your kids the way you want to, so you think everyone’s kids should be subject to what you want so you don’t have to be the bad guy

I rarely look at the tracking for my son but it is there if I need it.

I also think so many kids live between multiple homes, mums, dads and possibly even grandparents if shifts clash.

Their phone is their only point of contact for friends AND family.

I really don't agree with schools keeping phones either. I actually think its quite cruel to take a kids phone and keeping in for days, never mind weeks.

You are BU for not objecting to this aspect of the policy. Making a student miss a whole day of school just for having a phone on them (not even necessarily using it!) is ridiculously draconian. How is that going to help their learning?!

I would want my DC to have access to a phone for travelling to and from school, missed buses, bus break downs, change of plans ie no after school club so just getting school bus home etc.
I agree that it shouldn't be used or seen at all in school and it can just be a Nokia style.
I also dont agree in Schools keeping a phone for 20 days.
For the tracking weve never tracked each other, our kids or foster kids .

I really don't think it's that crazy to want children as young as 10 to be able to phone a parent in case of emergency🤷‍♀️

So if one of your DDs stumbled and fell on the way to/from school, and needed medical assistance as she was bleeding heavily or even broke her leg/arm - or any other medical emergency - do you honestly think that she would not be in any better position if she had a phone to call 999 or you than if she didn't?

Do you travel to and from work without a phone - and think that to have one available would just be over-anxious as you genuinely can't see any reason why one might be very helpful to have?

This 100% I would feel worried doing my commute with no way of contacting help if I needed it, and I’m a capable adult who can change a tyre, read a train timetable etc.
On the (several) occasions that southern railway have just decided to just terminate my train a few stops early leaving me to refigure my route I’ve used Trainline to double check I’m on the right track, literally. Why would I not want my teenager to have access to the same information in order to aid their decision making? I get if they have a short walk to school but most kids aren’t that fortunate and have to use at least 1 type of public transport.

I don't mind the phone bans, but I voted yabu for this line, which seems a ridiculously OTT policy from the school:

any child caught with a phone will be excluded - no questions asked

I’m not even in Cornwall and think this is ridiculous! My DCs get the train to /from school. There is no phone box at either station. When a problem on the line stopped all trains around home time, it thankfully happened on a day dh was working from home so could call the DCs to find each other, a coffee shop to wait in and he’d be there as fast as he could. If he’d been in office that day, the option would be a taxi.

watching posters who don’t think you need a phone book a taxi with no phone or internet access would be interesting. (There is no taxi rank outside the station near the school, there’s a list of phone numbers). There may be an option with two buses, of course you’d need to research the bus routes- info isn’t printed out anymore, there’s a website.

We have built systems based round having a phone to access services. They we expect teens to be able to use those services without parents present, so we need to give them phones.

My daughter started year 7 last year and phones were not allowed in school for all year groups. Works fine has been no major issues, we do live in a large village, so not sure if that makes a difference. She still came home with loads of phone numbers of new friends. A few that did not have phones did find they missed out on the kids meeting up at the wkends etc.

My daughter will be travelling 20 miles to secondary school.
Should she walk if the public transport fails?

‘There is always something’
Tell me you don’t live in Cornwall, without telling me you don’t live in Cornwall.

They will probably end up having to introduce some measures to ensure children don't use them at school as the responsibility is now the schools to ensure the kids don't use them.

We had this rule previously and so did my sons school. The problem is they sneak them into the toilets and use them there.

I think if a school is going to ban phones entirely, they should be reinstating a pay phone and for there to be phones at train stations, bus stations etc.

I didn't call my parents for everything in the 90s, but most people I knew had a BT card that would charge the call to your parents phone bill. I would have called if I knew I'd need permission for something or I knew that it would be a significant worry and I wasn't going somewhere with a landline.

Would be happy for my kids to have a dumb phone that was switched off and there for emergency use. Not a huge fan of tracking my kids or that my eldest seems permanently attached to his screen. The new school rules have meant they get less time on an already very short lunch break to go and collect phones. Not sure that dumb phones would have the same level of disruption or require the same safe keeping.