AIBU to ask for advice on how to overturn a school decision - quickly

Look, if a kid is walking somewhere secluded, and someone wants to harm them, they will do so very quickly, and a phone won't save them. It's all excuses to why "their" child should have a phone.

I can't imagine any member of staff, in a secondary school, chasing down students after school, for using a phone. Most staff are still in school once the students leave, they don't generally leave at the same time. A member of staff can't 'snatch' a phone off a student, it would be completely against professional guidelines as a teacher, especially outside of the school grounds. A teacher has no more right to do this, than anyone else has!

Unless you've personally seen a member of staff snatch a phone off a student outside of the school grounds, then I'd say this is a highly exaggerated statement made by a student who's misunderstood or has an over active imagination! Do some due diligence and please check this with the school!

I've worked in schools a long time, and in my humble experience, children exaggerate at best and lie at worst! Even the most honest of children will exaggerate (including my own teenage son!). It's a right of passage, exaggeration, for teenagers.

Banning of mobile phones has come from the government, but schools are choosing how they implement that ban.

Since when were school staff qualified doctors or pharmacists? It was never a change in policy - it was the Law.

I lost count of the number of times kids would come in asking for this apocryphal supply of paracetamol/nurofen/antihistamines/inhalers for kids who didn't have an asthma diagnosis and it would turn out that they'd already had three paracetamol, a sudafed max strength and a Lemsip at 7am (it was 8.30) and had they not been questioned, chances are that they would have got another two paracetamol from a mate, then more at break, lunch and at the end of the day - and, tbh, being told no, it's not possible, they could have still gone and got another 8 from various kids whose parents thought they knew better and then had another 4-6 in the evening.

My sons always took his. He uses it to and from school but thankfully is really good at remembering to put it away during the school day. I honestly don’t think the teachers can dictate on what happens after school has finished, I’m planning to send my daughter who’s starting in year 7 with hers, again same as above in bag and turned off.

i feel more comfortable with them having a phone on them than not at all the school is only 8 miles away but the bus has been known to be late/not turn up at all/break down/turn around and go back to school on the ay home due to terrible behaviour from a small group of students!

Oh god, I went to a few “not back to school” picnics that were just awful. The terrible things they would say about schools and children who went to them. I can completely imagine that happening.

I liked home educating for the time we did it, but I tended to steer clear of a lot of other home educating families, some were just unhinged. I was dropped like a hot stone when we sent ds to school!

I don’t believe for a single second that any school in the UK has a policy that includes the wording, “chase them down the street and snatch it out of their hand,” so why the random quotation marks?

What is the school’s actual policy, minus hyperbole, on mobile phones? Actual wording would help give more actually helpful responses.

I told her it was incredibly disappointing

I’m not saying it’s not an issue. I can only talk about ME.

Dds school have pretty strong sanctions for phones being seen, they have done for a long while.

If it’s seen it’s confiscated for the day in the first instance, then a week, then a term. Parents have to collect it when it’s released between 9 and 10 am.

It’s an all girls grammar though where on the whole, they are all pretty well behaved.

Our local school where a lot of her friends went do have a lot of issues with phones and teachers being filmed on social media. But they have a lot of issues in general (the metal detector arch on the way in due to kids bringing in knives tells you all you need to know).

This ⬆️. That's what students do and it's fine.

Of course it isn't.

Great. Now if the other 1699 parents in my local high school could do the same we’d be all set 👌

Teachers aren’t leaving at the same time as the kids to be able to see them walking home on a phone. They’re also not jumping out of their cars to take a phone from a child outside of school property. Just have the phone switched off in the bag and make sure it’s not seen. There’ll only be an issue if it’s seen or heard in school, and if it is then it deserves to be taken.

Which teachers are volunteering (after school so not a mandatory part of the job) to chase children down in the street and steal their property? 🤔 Sorry, I don't believe this is a real school policy.

What an incredibly strange thing to do

Our school have allowed years 8-11 a mobile phone but it has to be switched off and in the bottom of their bag during the school day. It’s a blanket ban on all year 7’s.

We live rurally and the bus has kicked my children off the bus 5/6 miles from home - I’ve had to go and collect them. Without them having their phones I wouldn’t have been able to find them and quite probably had to call the police.

whilst I think our government is completely bonkers about this the idiots have indeed mandated it so unless I home school I have to abide by it.

Ive never known a teacher to be bothered to chase a child down after the school day has finished…

They’ve got a good Facebook group (oh the irony 🤣) that is very supportive! We looked at the research that the 1000 Hours Outside challenge stemmed from, way back when DSD was a toddler. It’s US based but essentially they found that children under 18 were spending an average of 1000 hours per year in front of a screen, and challenged families to equal that with outside hours. We’ve done it every year since and it’s great motivation, she’s 11 now and still likes to colour her tracker!

An actual friend of mine who is a home ed parent posted that they set up a picnic near the local primary school and laughed at the Children queuing to go inside their prison.

Okay genius. If you get assaulted in a dark alleyway, what's the first thing you're doing?

Your daughter is the minority and you know that.

Okay, well mine couldn’t film on hers even if she wanted to.

It doesn’t even have snake on it.

Considering she has time to make an insane mumsnet post and not with police/hospital I would assume her daughter is perfectly fine. If not, then her priorities are skewed and her daughter has other problems aka parents with issues.

Guidance to schools is changing about use of phones in school. And you may find it informative to look at the research about the impact of smartphone use on developing brains. The website Smartphone Free Childhood is a good info source.

That’s quite a presumption. She hasn’t told us what the incident was or how her daughter is now.

This clearly isn't the school for your DC. Why did you apply for a place there? Start the procedure for transfer to another school.

Now that's what I call teaching those kids a lesson!