To feel relieved the school has now completely banned phones

Thank you for conceding that schools indeed don't have any way of knowing that 'nearly all of the kids are on their phones', but that they're just lazily tarring all of the kids with the same brush.

You, and parents like you, are part of the problem. If you kid had followed the existing rules schools wouldn't need to be stricter.

I'm not sure whether you're confusing me with another poster, or if you just haven't troubled yourself to read what I've written throughout this thread before nevertheless quoting and responding to it.

If you have/had read my posts, I have clearly said several times that my DS previously followed the sensible rules that were in place, and has continued to follow the new blanket rules, however unfair and ill-thought-out they may be. It is the poorly-behaved/parented kids who ignored the rules before - thus directly leading to the new rules being brought in, but for everybody - and indeed who continue to ignore them; whilst my DS and the other conscientious kids have followed whatever rules were/are in place throughout.

Where did you grow up, antarctica? Selective memory to virtue signal more like. Payphones were everywhere in the 90s.

And not a hint of irony that you typed this on a forum, likely with glazed expression.

And funny enough, just as using a washing machine doesnt mean you couldnt manage without one, the same can be said for phones. But that doesnt have the same virtue signalling potential, does it?

Schools monitor patterns of behaviour obviously. Don't be so hyperbolic.

Your kid cant use his phone at school any more. Big deal. Get over it. Back the school up, let them get on with teaching. He will live.

You, and parents like you, are part of the problem. If you kid had followed the existing rules schools wouldn't need to be stricter.

What, so they monitor every child and have a profile of all of the school rules that they haven't broken and all the possible miscreant behaviours that they haven't done? "Timmy works hard, is polite and is doing especially well at maths; he doesn't use his phone in class or bully other children for their lunch money and he hasn't - as at this present time - burned the school down"?!

As I've said several times, my DS has occasionally used his phone 'at school' - that wasn't a 'gotcha', if it was meant to be. He has used it from time to time at breaktimes and before/after the school day, when he has needed to contact us.

His school used to have a very sensible, practical rule that allowed the use of phones outside at breaktimes (and of course before and after the school day) - and they rightly clamped down on any student using their phone during lessons; but they decided to change it for everybody - because of the poorly-behaved teens (who still ignore the rule anyway - as poorly-behaved people tend to ignore rules) - to completely ban phones from the premises from half an hour before the day starts to 45 minutes after it finishes; then a few months after they did this, the law changed anyway.

I really think that some adults are summarily incapable of understanding that plenty of teenagers CAN use phones perfectly appropriately; having access to one does not automatically mean that they will be abusing that facility and addicted to it. It reminds me of the early days of the web, when you would mention something that you'd learned and tech deniers/refuseniks who didn't know it would scoff "Oh, is that something that you read on the INTERNET?!" like you were automatically stupid and useless at critical thinking, regardless of whether you'd seen it on crazybobreckons.com or on a government webpage.

Of course schools monitor individual behaviour. Why would uou think they don't?
Parents all seem to think their child is the exception of course...
If your kid doesn't use their phone at school they wont have any issues.

Presumably you made sure your DS was using the pouch properly?

I agree phones should be totally out of sight at school but I disagree with a total ban

firstly kids use apps for bus tickets, they can’t get the cheapest fare any other way. Secondly I would have no way of knowing when my child needs to be picked up on days where he doesn’t just get the bus (if there is an activity for example). Back when I was at school i could use a 10p call box but they don’t exist any more

similarly if they go to a friend’s house after school which is common, how do I know where they are? Again, no call
box option

we live in a digital age now, whether we like it or not

The negatives of kids having smartphones in schools far outweigh the positives as any member of pastoral or safeguarding staff will tell you. Rather than tougher legislation for incredibly wealthy tech companies, the government have put the responsibility for protecting kids from the harms of social media onto schools by telling us to stop kids using phones. The reason there are teething problems is because it’s another example of a societal problem being pushed onto schools. Overall, for the record, I'm favour of the ban.

There’s TikTok’s doing the rounds telling kids how to get round the ban

My children’s school just had a policy which said phones must be off and not seen during the school day. They were allowed to have them in their bag or blazer pocket as long as they were not used.

I think that is the best policy as it allows the kids to have them to contact parents if necessary during the journey to and from school and use it for bus times and their bus ticket etc if needed. I see no reason to ban them entirely. My kids used to check their homework tasks on their phone on the way home so they knew what they had to do that night once they were home. If the homework required some reading online around the topic, they would often do that too on the journey home which was a good use of their time.

DS school was part of the trial for this in Scotland using the lockable pouches-utter waste of time and money. Within a week the kids all new how to bypass the lock…some went to the lengths of just putting a burner phone in the pouches.

Wee cherubs 🤣

I realise that the 'some' here is a very large number; but I still don't agree with punishing innocent, responsible people, just because of their age. As my previous comment, I have no issues at all with teens who cannot/will not use their phones appropriately being banned.

I would also question the assertion that it's 'almost all' of them. Is anybody keeping individual records of all of the students and evaluating their wise/inappropriate phone usage - or is it just a widespread problem that it's just easier to tar everybody with?

By way of analogy, as has been pointed out many times before, if you went by the threads on MN, virtually every MIL and DIL would be fierce enemies and one or other of them guilty of outrageous behaviour; and all husbands would be horrific cheating, abusive bastards who need to be left immediately. Of course, this assumption is made because nobody is coming on to tell everybody that, save the odd little disagreement, they and their MIL/DIL love each other and get on very well; nobody is coming on to say that their DH is not perfect but is a decent, kind bloke. Similarly, how many teachers are noticing all of the students who don't get their phones out in lessons and who aren't reported for bullying and abusing other kids online? Do you have your own personal criminal record with your local police that shows up clean; or are you just not known to them in the first place?

Our school has brought in a ban this year- im
so pleased. Children now can have a phone off in their bag- so can put it on to leave school/ travel. DS has just gone into yr7, and has a basic android, zero phone interest at the moment so I think it will stay that way a lot longer now!

True... but I'm of a fair and democratic mindset whereby people are not punished because other people are doing wrong and breaking rules. I don't want to to be forced to wear an ASBO ankle tag because my neighbours have been fighting and swearing at people in the street and breaking windows.

I would have no problem whatsoever in phone bans and strict sanctions for kids who had been found to be using them inappropriately. Maybe parents could even work alongside the schools to let them know if their own teens had shown that they couldn't be trusted... except they probably wouldn't, as these are the parents whose neglect is causing most of the issues in the first place.

One strike and you're out. Lily has been seen/reported/found to have been using her phone in class when this is very clearly forbidden, so she is on a warning that, if she is seen doing so again for the rest of the term, she will risk long detentions, lose treat privileges, suspension and - if she persists - expulsion.

Evie has been seen messaging her mum at breaktime to tell her that today's after-school hockey club has been cancelled, because the teacher leading it is off sick, and keeping her phone in her bag and switched off during all lessons - this is absolutely fine and a sensible, wise use of a phone, so she is of course fully permitted to keep on doing this. Lily might even notice and envy Evie's position of maturity and trust and decide to improve her own behaviour, so that she can be allowed to keep her own phone for appropriate use from the next term.

The way I see it there are 2 things wrong with that line of thinking.

1. In my opinion, we were a lot more independent and street savvy from a much younger age. I’d been walking to school and pounding the pavements since nearly 7.
2. Shit did happen. Sometimes really bad shit.

You're woefully naive if you think its just "some" teenagers causing issues with phones in schools. It's almost all of them. Ask anyone who works in a school.

It's wonderfully ironic a bunch of adults choosing to go on to the internet to have a chat with strangers about something in the news, and then insisting that there's no benefit to modern tech and that everything is/was better and perfectly fine when we didn't have any of the modern communications methods!

I bet if we were discussing the advent of pocket calculators several decades back - at the bus stop or pub, presumably - people would have been bemoaning it and how utterly pointless it was when you could just pop your abacus in your school bag!

Banning phones for all teenagers, because some of them can't be disciplined/adequately parented in using them wisely, makes as much sense as banning the entire internet for everybody - including MN - because some adults use the web to spread and access extremely harmful content of all kinds... many of them even using phones to do so.

I think many people would be very reluctant to let someone borrow their phone especially a young boy who might well be bigger than the person hes asking.

Well clearly parents aren't bringing their kids up to make wise decisions. Hence here we all are.
If phones weren't causing issues, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Blanket ban is not helpful as kids have travel pass or bank card on smartphones. So no phone and no pay phones. If traveling in London TFL live with delays and other travel options are very helpful since most times there are no one at the Tube station for help.
Maps, if visiting places they need to be able to travel back, anyone seen an A to Z book recently?
Apps for discount in shops and food places.
So when they can use smartphones, they would have no idea of danger, how to use etc without parental guidance.

What do school's rules or ideals have to do with it once you're at the railway station?

The harms of continuous phone use are a matter for parents to parent properly and teach their children discipline and wise use of phones... but somebody will be right along to scoff at the idea that parents ever could or should bring their children up to make wise decisions.

Exactly. Schools haven't got time for bag searches. If they know your kid has a phone its because they are using it.