What is your secondary school doing about mobile phone policy?

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Our school are suggesting trackers as phones aren’t allowed on site or the commute either. This also includes brick phones. Crackers. How do I support the logic of this to my child?

We had an email last week asking for £11 for the pouches. If not buying one then no phone allowed in school. But they understand commuting and needing phones. School already has an out of sight in bag policy and confiscation if caught but my daughter frequently texts me from school!!

My sister’s child’s school are doing an out right ban which is not going down well. And console a whole term of rules are broken more than once.

I don’t think schools should be allowed to keep a phone for a term. Parents pay alot of money and school can’t police what they use out of school.

We have the pouches but the children have all figured out how to open them so not sure how well that’s working!

Amazes me that phones have ever been allowed at schools- what about safe guarding in toilets etc?
my child’s school has never allowed, if they have them- they hand them into the school office at the start of the year- & yes this is a large secondary school. I’m not sure the admin of this & how it works as my children have never taken their phones in. We live a short walk, so not a big deal for us!

Ours take the phones off them on arrival and they are locked away until afternoon registration. If a phone is found on them it is confiscated for 5 days and a parent has to collect. Parents get annoyed but this is a better deterrent as if tilters down from parent to child.

Process has been going on for years and they just do it. Rare they keep them.

That’s terrible, they need them on the way to school and back Incase anything happens and they need to contact someone!

Why? Generations have managed to get to and from school without the aid of a digital umbilical cord. In the rare cases where they might have a genuine need (e.g. diabetic students who use smart phones to monitor their blood sugar levels and deliver and insulin bolus) then there should be an exception but otherwise it is what it is.

Our school will not have smartphones on site, therefore they can't be brought on the journey to/from school. 'Brick' phones are permitted but must be switched off and in bags for the duration of the school day.

If you feel the need to track your child rather than teaching them responsibility and independence, sew an Apple tag or equivalent into their school bag/coat.

Honestly having worked in secondary schools for the last 10 years I think banning smart phones is long overdue - I cannot even begin to tell you the amount of problems they cause for both staff and students.

Everything stays the same - phones handed in to form teacher at the start of the day, collected at the end.
we are rural, so smartphones are a must as most students take at least 2 forms of public transport to get to school (bus and train), and there is no mobile reception at most of school and most if the way

Nice if you live in a city and your child walks. Completely impossible if you live rurally and your child takes public transport to school and needs to tell you where to pick them up if train/bus doesn’t run, which happens at least once per month. No mobile reception most of the way.

The school I work in has done this. It’s been transformational

Our school has had a no mobile phone rule for over a decade and I thoroughly recommend it. There are a small number of exemptions - eg diabetics who need their app for tracking blood sugar, school trips/sports fixtures with uncertain return times, etc…

However, our location in a large suburb means that no-one has a huge commute (perhaps max 30 minute walk), so some of the challenges re travel cards don’t apply for us. My initial reaction to tracking children is that this is neurotic but at the same time I would accept that mobile phones have led to the virtual eradication of pay phones so it’s actually tricky for a child to get in touch in any other way if they do have a problem so perhaps something like that is needed.

@Cricketmadmum i think the tracking mainly makes sense rurally, or in proper big cities. We are rural, and my son could be at any of 8 tiny train stations if his train (he can take 2 different ones as well) has issues. Most have very little mobile phone reception (but wifi on the train!) and no personnel, so i really need to know where to collect him if there’s animals on the line, train broken down, signalling issues etc!

Our school has always been ‘if it’s out or on, it’s gone’. Moving to phones in lockers each day,

Phone off, in bag and not seen at school. There school has had this rule since before my eldest started there 3 years ago. Mine don’t have smart phones. If seen, phone will be confiscated and a parent must collect it.

Unless school are providing the transport, they can’t rule no phones on that.

My school will be handing to tutors to be locked away at the start of the day.
My DCs' school will have pouches.

I am happy with both these policies.

My DCs use the bus for school. They pay by smartphone which is the cheapest rate and has their youth discount card built in. Cash/ card would cost me £££ extra per year on top of their current fares. Such is the way life is arranged in 2026.

A smartphone allows them to access timetables and track buses on the company's app. When there's been travel chaos with lengthy delays and diversions, they've been able to track where they are in unknown suburbs and keep calm avoiding autistic meltdown. In the winter it's a torch in areas of poor street lighting after they alight. They use the bus journey efficiently to do app based homework. There are no payphones on the way home, and if there's a problem after an after school activity, by the time they go to the bus stop and walk back to school, reception is closed.

Last week DS had an issue getting to school and a smartphone gave him clearer communication with me as photos and screenshots made it easier for him to communicate the situation to me (autistic teenager in off-plan situation stressing over getting to school on time...). Him being able to communicate with me meant that I could alert his school to the potential for lateness (He currently lacks the social confidence to make the call directlt to his school and explain coherently himself)

I've also had issues when t'other DC needed emergency collection part-way home from the bus stop because his knee locked painfully and he needed to give me a precise location for pick-up. When he's asked me to meet him on twighlight walks home in the winter, I use my mapping apps to select the most efficient route to cross-paths with where he's going to be along the route.

The phone is an essential tool for his safe commuting to school in 2026 (not 1996 when I bussed and small change was readily avaliable for the payphone by the bus stop), and a smart phone has many practical tools to deal with public transport and manage disruption when life goes off-plan.

As a parent, my greatest responsibility is to create young people who can launch into independent adult life, and I am training them up for that.

Banning smart phones and phones for commuting is overstepping the remit of schools and denying realistic skills on the path to developing independence skills.

We managed when we went to school with no phones!

Yonder pouches at DDs school. She hasnt heard of anyone sneaking in a 2nd phone (likely to be a small minority as where could they use them ?) and it seems to be working well.

People also survived without washing machines, hoovers, brick built houses, modern medicine.... Doesn't mean it was a golden age.

It depends on your child's commute. A walk home generally won't require a phone (unless something happens, and phone boxes are all gone). Wheras a bus and train commute needs a phone to check timetables, buy passes etc.

FFS, many of us managed perfectly well to get to and from school - both my generation and my DDs’ - before mobile phones were the norm.

I don't see how they can ban kids keeping phones on the commute.

Phones are used for everything these days including listening to music while kids walk. As well as tickets for buses and trains. Along with paying for stuff.

Lots of kids live between 2 houses, and then add to the mix the kids who go to Grandparents afterschool for a bit get fed then driven to clubs.

I do agree with a ban on phone use during the school day, but zero idea how you actually police it.

Yonder pouches sound like chocolate fire guards to me.
Fill with old dud phones, or any sort of phone shaped object, homemade or otherwise. I mean really how hard can it be to make something phone shaped, the hardest bit will be making it heavy enough to feel real. Thinking about it an old phone cover filled with sand or muck would give you weight and shape.

Got an email today that from September they’ll be using the app blackout, so kids allowed them in school due to travel etc but can’t use social media, or camera which my dd13 is livid about. Her and her friends spend half of lunchtime taking pictures 😅

Well its the 21st century. Lots of things have changed with the advent of the pocket computer.

Our secondary grammar school has always been phone free - my eldest was there 9 years ago and dc currently there under same rules. Phones must be in bags, turned off before they step through the gates.

DS gets the bus to school just like I did back in the 90s. I had a physical bus pass (provided for free by the Local Authority...) and remember using payphones when there were bus problems. DS's season ticket for the bus is on an app and there are no payphones anymore.

I've just checked the bus company's website and the only option it offers for purchasing season tickets is via the app. (It does say you can also buy them online and get them emailed or posted to you, but I got an error message when I clicked on it.)You can buy daily tickets onboard but as a pp says, that works out as £££ more compared to the season ticket.

DS's school requires phones to be off and out of sight for the school day or they're confiscated. But they're allowed before and after as many pupils need them to access travel passes.

Our school has phones in pouches ‘locked’ on the way in and ‘opened’ on the way out by magnet type opening stations. Works perfectly.

Our school has always had the rule that phones must be switched off in bags and if heard or seen will be confiscated. From September though they say that rule still applies to years 8-11 - though if confiscated phones will not be returned until the end of the half term. Year 7 and then each year going forward will not be permitted to bring phones at all. Not sure what extra punishment there will be if they do, beyond the confiscation until half term!

we are in London so phones not needed for travel, and the maximum catchment area for the school has been well under a mile for several years, so in theory all kids should be walking to school and not needing phones. My kids don’t take their phones to school as they don’t want the stress of forgetting to switch them off or whatever. But they are home from school within ten minutes and I just message them when I am at work to check they have got home safe. I appreciate different areas have different contexts though.

It's only recently I found out they weren't banned in all schools until 6th form already, and my kids have both now left! It's a strict phones off in bags policy in the schools I know here, if discovered the parent/guardian has to go in and retrieve it. I can't get my head round schools ever allowing them!