London Oratory complete mobile phone ban even on long commutes

The boys have second hand smart phone at home or on headphones gaming with their friends. The no phone policy doesn’t cover home use, families just tell their DC to say they have no phones etc but they do.

Such an anti Oratory sentiment from some posters. If you don’t like it go elsewhere and leave your place for a boy who deserves it and will benefit from their ethos.

DD1 and DD2 never had their bags searched at school.

As I have already explained upthread, such a challenge would be very, very unlikely to succeed.

My sons got places there, I wanted them to go to the Oratory and was fine with the policy for reasons PPs stated above, but my husband was dead against it like the OP and so we went elsewhere. That was our choice and our sons are well settled elsewhere now.

But when I see my sons both glued to their phones, as their friends are, and us having to really police the time they spend on them in a way which is a struggle sometimes, it does almost make me wish we had made a different choice. I know boys who go there and they have never had a safety issue, seem far less phone-reliant for socialising and the point the head makes that there’s no point mugging the boys from LOS seems to be true.

So send your kid elsewhere, instead of one of the most sought after state schools in London 🤷🏻‍♀️
it’s really very simple, for most people.

Yes if they act like they are operating a dictatorship. Until someone takes them to court and they find their rules have no legal effect.

By using one of the myriad phone boxes that existed then and don't now.

Also where I went to school there were six buses I could take. Where DDs went to school there was one bus, which was sometimes unreliable.

Well, yes, they can. Clearly.

Schools cannot control what children do outside of school nor bringing in items in their bags (other than if they suspect they are carrying something illegal). Are they going to search all bags to see if they have a little Nokia at the bottom? Sounds like overstepping to me.

Not a parent of school age children, never had to consider long commutes.

My preference if practical is the phone locked away during the school day, so not on the child whilst in lessons or break/lunchtime.

I defend the school having the rule it does, whilst not my preference. Air tags and the ability to know how trains and buses are running to time (or not) is available.

Concerns might be less if we kept to BST year round, so always going home completely in daylight.

How would your daughter have coped thirty years ago? This is utterly ludicrous and over the top.

Amazing, really, that there are schools within reach of such a remote wilderness.

where we live, yes. It isn’t a dense area where she can count on asking for help if she is injured.

I suppose I could get her a satellite radio or something, but the way they wrote our law, they would be covered as well.

as I said. Badly written, blunt law.

Judging by the number of newly hatched year sevens walking the streets after school glued to their phones, I’m talking heads down gawping at their screens like their lives depend on it, I think the Oratory is to be applauded for their policy. It’s so depressing seeing youngsters so attached to their devices. Makes them so vulnerable to mugging too. The Oratory has it right.

Almost an adult? And she’s in actual danger leaving the house without a phone?!

During 7/7 all the phone signals were jammed anyway. You couldn't get through to anyone for hours. You had to just work it all out and get home as best you could.

I imagine it would create more stress for parents and children having the device they have learned to depend on rended utterly useless right when they need it. That day the transport ground to a halt and the roads were blocked - so not really very much anyone could do to get to anyone anyway. Maybe, just maybe it would be better to develop resilient children in the first place so they can cope in this situation.

I do feel from this thread children having a mobile phone is more about the parent's reliance (addiction) and passing this on to their children. Very often this insistence on a child having a phone is more about parental anxiety of perceived danger than offering any real benefit to the child. It's just slightly less creepy giving them a phone than sewing a tag into their shoe!

As an aside I (a short arsed woman past my prime) was in Victoria with my DC at about 4pm on Wednesday. As we walked I put my hand into my bag. A hoodie on a lime bike must have jumped onto the pavement and, as I retrieved a bag of popcorn for DC from my bag, he was right beside me. I saw a look of extreme annoyance on his face, as he bumped himself back on the road (presumably to do another round). I explained to DC what had just happened and why...

Someone up there must have been watching out for me as my peri-menopausal brain meant I'd put my phone in my other bag and left it at home anyway! I also ended up walking in the wrong direction for a couple of minutes, so stopped a stranger and asked for directions. He got his phone out and after a pleasant exchange we were all on our way. People are mainly nice and helpful - who knew?

No!

No. I am normally a rule follower, almost to a fault. This particular rule puts her in danger. It is a bad law.

many of the people who passed it even admitted it was a blunt, poorly written law, but they were in a rush before the legislative session closed so they chose to pass something rather than craft a better law. They felt they had to do something about phones in schools, but did not take the time to deal with all the issues the law they wrote created.

Thankfully our school has made it clear they know the law was poorly written. They have adopted a don’t ask, don’t tell philosophy. There are no bag searches. As long as students aren’t stupid, no one is going to get caught with a turned off phone in the bottom of their bag.

My child is also almost an adult. Many of her classmates are adults. They go from school straight to internships and part-time jobs. Telling them they can’t carry a phone is illogical and completely impractical.

Why should the school have any opinion on what equipment children have outside of school? What if the children have other plan than going directly home - plans which might require some coordination?

(Sounds like a business opportunity for running a phone safeboxes close to the school gate).

I have also had a very long association with the Oratory as both a teacher and a parent. I’ve never known there to be a single incident on the way to or from school that an enterprising boy couldn’t sort out. That includes during terrorist incidents and when a boy got stuck in an elevator at Earl’s Court on the way to his Latin gcse.
Look at the boys on the tube or the bus. They are talking to eachother, they are doing their homework, they are reading a book!! Isn’t that what we want? Also, the school is not going to change their policy because a prospective parent wrote a strongly worded letter.

I'd be supportive.

I had a long train commute to school and there were only two times in 7 years when a mobile phone would have been useful. But in this day and age my parents have their own phones and would been able to see my train was delayed themselves.

I had a great time on the the commute chatting to the other kids. Sometimes read or did homework. I hear horror stories about my friends' teens and what goes on with their phones. I'd love to blame the school for not letting DC have one!

Also, no-one carries around an A to Z now, but that doesn't mean they can't? You could always get them one.