Brick phone at an iPad school

It’s a bit disingenuous to say we all managed without phones, there were pay phones all over so if a bus was cancelled you could still call home. Brick phones can be cheap but we’ve found they aren’t reliable (sometimes confiscate the smartphone as punishment and give the brick), they don’t have as strong reception as the smartphones (same SIM card and we’ve tried a few). I also think if you’re traveling on the tube you have WiFi so can still be in contact if necessary if you are below ground. It’s helpful to encourage independence to be able to drop a pin on Google Maps and say meet me here. I also don’t like this cliff edge, we all know phones are addictive and giving unfettered access at 16 when we have less influence as parents is a worry. The reality is this is going to cost parents, a lot of my DCs friends have their parents old phones, presumable when the parents have upgraded, to get a brick that you can have maps and tracking on is over £250 (looking at the smartphone free childhood options). I’m very sympathetic to the cause and see the benefits but I think the locked bags should be the answer not forking out for new phones.

You mean they lock their old smart phone in a pouch 😉

We didn’t get this at all as a one to one device school.

When you have one class set that moves around, nobody takes responsibility and the infrastructure isn’t sound.

When you have 800, the backend is more controlled and systematic. Updates are pushed out, systems are locked down more, kept cleaner so they’re quicker for longer. Charging is the student’s responsibility and we have a few sockets available for those who forgot.

At that scale you also need some it support more than once a fortnight

Our secondary got round this by having a “suggested” contribution from parents of £13 a month for the compulsory school issued iPad. Dd is now year 10 and we’ve been paying that since year 7. It’s totally locked down to school apps and anything they deem appropriate content for browsers, I.e not a lot.

Pupil premium students don’t have to contribute to the school iPad scheme (which is basically a rental, as at the end of year 11 you either have to give it back or pay however much it is to buy it and keep it). Hardly anyone buys it as they then need to provide their own laptops for sixth form.

If a student isn’t pupil premium but parents feel they can’t afford the £13 a month, they can either contact the school and suggest an amount they feel they can afford to pay, or apply for funding from the school. From what I gather very few people do this and most just sign the contract to pay the £13 a month for 5 years!

At our local comp they expect you to cough up nearly £900 before your new Y7 sets foot on the property - for a Chromebook and the September residential trip (so with uniform you’re down a grand+!!). They conveniently omit to mention that both things are effectively voluntary!

iPads will more than likely be locked down so only apps needed for education are available.

But that doesn’t say they can’t have smartphones. It just says they can’t use them during the school day.

So phones in bags, switched off. Much like pretty much most schools these days.

Yes, I’ve been told that kids at our secondary school used to take their phones into the toilet when they had a “off and in bags” policy. They would then hog the toilet cubicles for ages while they sat there scrolling and messaging. The result was that other children didn’t have time to use the toilets and then had to go back to lessons without going - so got in trouble when they then got desperate during lessons. And the children in the toilets missed out on social time and developing face to face relationships.

I’m very glad that the school has now realised the out of sight policy wasn’t working and are introducing pouches.

Our primary has banned smartphones completely from the premises and quite right too IMO. No 10 year old needs a smartphone.

IPADs and laptops at schools are monitored by a software system which prevents students accessing to dangerous websites and searching things that are considered dangerous or inappropriate for them. Headteacher / staff teachers gets notified if a child attempts doing something wrong on it and they can act on it on the spot.

Students are getting traumatised by the impact of online world and schools are doing their best to keep them safe. Why not support them in this difficult decision but choose to blame them. I am sure parents will see the difference and realise it's benefits.

Our secondary already has a phone ban, they confiscate any device they see and keep for 48 hrs, even if a Friday and this means over a weekend. My kids goes into the toilet to text if they realise they’ve forgotten someone or to remind me to top up their lunch money, but if I mentioned them getting in touch when I dropped whatever off they’d go find her and take her phone.
At our primary a parent has to complete a phone in school form and they are handed in at the beginning of the day but it done in trust really. Some kids don’t get their parents to authorise and just leave their phone in their bag in the cloakroom.
Be interesting if the schools double down and make the rules even stricter from September

Please support the school in this. I work in a school and we banned smartphones a while ago - the positive impact on students' mental health, readiness to learn, social skills, bullying has been extraordinary. We all wish it had been introduced sooner.

We use the pouches but I honestly think brick phones would be an even better solution. They're really cheap to buy.

One if my kids switched to an iPad school in year 9 - we had to catch up with the payment plan and pay a chunk in one go. I wasn't happy especially as many of them were poor refurbs. It was better than lugging school books back and forth or forcing the use of smart phones though.
All my elder kids had smart phones by year 7. My youngest will not get one until at least year 9 - the tide is turning.

I didn’t even catch that! I meant state too :)

They give parents payment plans! I think it’s terrible.

They can't 'make' you buy an iPad. What they are doing is offering you an option to purchase one if you want. It's totally optional.

Sorry, I used the wrong term - I realise 'public school' means private in the UK.

I meant to say no state school will make you buy an iPad.

Wow I can’t believe those of you complaining about this. The chance to change the trajectory of your child becoming addicted to a smartphone, that is actively harming them. I’d be absolutely thrilled if our school did this.

The whole point is changing the culture. Think now about the smoking ban coming in. Some people felt it couldnt happen soon enough because they understood the harms. Others felt it was extreme and controlling. Now it’s unthinkable that we’d allow smoking in enclosed spaces around children. The more of us that get our kids brick phones, the more normalised it is and we reduce the harms coming to a whole generation of kids.

My child takes her smart phone to school and switches it off and it stays in her bag. They’re allowed to switch them on when the last lesson ends.

Plenty do. We chose one that didn’t! I think it’s ridiculous

They don't need a phone. It's all about trusting them to go to school and back again safely. I think it's great to ban them. There is no need and it's a distraction from learning and a tool for bullying

If parents actually parented their children properly, most problems with phones, bullying etc wouldn’t happen in the first place.

Also, TFL live in London area in case tube line is down so you need to sort out another route or another transport such as bus or Overground. It is a very useful app with up to date status.

Unless your kids have to get on a bus to school, they don't need to take a phone to school.
Generations of kids walked to and from school without phones tracking their every move. Slightly different if they have to get on a bus independently as probably good to know if they miss a bus.
We do really be smothering a while generation of kids.

No, the school are not making you buy a £500 iPad. (Well, not if it’s a state school in England anyway.)
“School governing bodies and local authorities, cannot charge for:
• an admission application to any state funded school - paragraph 1.9 (n) of the
‘School Admissions Code 2012’ rules out requests for financial contributions as
any part of the admissions process;
• education provided during school hours (including the supply of any materials,
books, instruments or other equipment);
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5af99c8ae5274a25e78bbe30/Charging_for_school_activities.pdf

I think it’s fine to ban smartphones from being used in school, but silly to ban them from the premises entirely. At my daughter’s primary school phones have to remain switched off and out of sight in their bags. Some schools have the kids deposit them in a box or something as they enter the school. I think the secondary school she is off to in August have a similar rule. I would worry if my daughter got into some difficulty on the way home and needed to contact me.
I also like being able to track her.
Having said that, I suppose we all survived without them in the old days lol.
No chance would I be buying her a brick phone or any kind of other phone if school was banning them entirely. She would have to go without. There is no way in hell this rule should be causing any parent to have to fork out for a second bloody phone!
I think it’s a bit backwards this rule, when the technology is there to help kids be a bit safer when out and about.
In our local authority there are also constant threats of them increasing the distance at which they will put on transport. Even more reason for kids to have access to their phones if they aren’t potentially facing a long walk home or having to use public transport.