Mobile phone ban on overseas school trip

[anotherglass]

12 year old son is due to go on his first overseas school trip to Belgium later this month.

There is a strict ban on children using mobile phones during the trip.

Part of the trip will involve a period of up to 2 hours where children will be allowed to wander around an open, retail precinct - unsupervised. Teachers will not be far and kids will have cards - in the local language - to hand to someone if they are in trouble, during this activity.

Parents were not made aware of this unsupervised element of the trip, prior to making payment.

I am nervous not only about this element, but also the fact that there is a heightened risk of terrorists attacks during the period of the trip, which coincides with Euro 2016.

AIBU to insist on son being allowed to take his mobile phone on the trip?

YABU.

Why does your son need a phone for that two hour period? What do you think would happen to him? That can't be sorted by the others in his group

They will be in groups of three minimum, so if anyone got hurt, one stays with the injured party, the other gets help. They won't be wandering far, and teachers will be positioned well and they will know where a member of staff is at all times. How lost can you get that lost in a shopping precinct that will have been "scouted" out and risk assessed by staff before the trip even happened.

Besides, if your son can't be trusted /isn't capable of being in a retail precinct for 2 hours with a group without getting lost then maybe your son shouldn't even go on the trip?

Onlyicanclean10 for you

As other posters have said, there is now way having a mobile will protect you against any imminent danger. (In the case of a terrorist attack, anyone who stands around faffing with phones is just going to be a target.) It will however expose you to the danger of mugging.

And if 30 youngsters take mobile phones, there is an excellent chance that at least one teacher will be bound up with reporting loss of mobile phone and trying to console distraught youngster, leaving less supervision and teaching resources for the rest of the group.

I'd say the card to hand over to locals seems rather OTT on the part of the school: this is a shopping precinct in Belgium, not some recently discovered tribe in Papua Guinea: can't imagine that they wouldn't be able to locate at least someone with some English.

My ds did this trip a few years ago and was absolutely fine.

YABU.

I wandered unsupervised around Paris for several hours at the same age, it was great fun.

DS went to Spain earlier this year and school got us to sign a disclaimer absolving them of all responsibility for his mobile phone and for any usage charges if he chose to take it. All the students took theirs, but the teachers told them that they could only use them at the hotel or if there was an emergency. Obviously schools have different ways of handling this. I presume that the school has run the trip before and know the logistics.

Mobile phones aren't allowed on any of the foreign or domestic school trips I do.

We do allow devices as the journey times can be very long but they are supposed to be for games, music etc only.

To be honest though, schools are fighting a losing battle on this. One of the ideas of not having phones or internet enabled devices is to avoid the minefield of photos on social media. But children are about 5000 steps ahead of us and we're never going to catch up. We can't prevent them getting on 4G on things they have, if they've a mind to and, in a few years time, all we're going to be able to do is say what we expect, trust them and hope for the best.

I think it's either going to lead to a blanket ban on all electronic devices on trip or it's going to mean we give up and there's a free for all.

I think, on balance, although I do understand the nagging worry, YABU. A 12 year old doesn't need a phone.

I went to France with the school when I was 14. We regularly all trooped off to the local village unsupervised. We were taken to a local school, paired up with a french pupil and sent off with them for the evening. We were left to roam Mt St Michel unsupervised pretty much all day.

No one got lost or died. We didn't have mobile phones then.

Your child will survive without a phone.

But you can't "insist"

It's a blanket ban!

YABU

I take school trips out - we don't allow phones for all the reasons outlined above. But particularly the issue with social media. We had to start doing this when there was an incident on a trip (no danger to anyone on the trip) and we were getting calls before being able to sort the situation out - this meant we were dealing with calls from parents rather than dealing with the situation and communicating as necessary (which in this case, it wasn't)

Onlyicanclean10

YANBU I would not want my DD or DS going on a trip without a phone.

DD (13) went on a French exchange, she and all her friends took their phones and the French kids had theirs when they came to the UK. They all had their teachers number and were to call her if they needed to.

On a recent school skiing trip all the kids took their phones.

Just give him the phone to take and tell him not to be obvious about it.

This has surely been standard procedure for generations. As others have said, a mobile phone will do absolutely nothing in the event of a terrorist attack, and one of the adults will doubtless have one to make contact with parents should anything urgent arise. Even if he gets lost - what use is the phone going to be? Are you going to go and pick him up?!

They'll all just have to listen, pay attention to their surroundings, keep an eye on the time and learn to read a map. All valuable skills!

Onlyicanclean10

Yabu

Love "the local language"

"YANBU I would not want my DD or DS going on a trip without a phone"

Why not?

Unless you press call on the phone and it erupts into a bomb proof tarsis James Bond style I am not seeing how useful it will be in a terrorist attack.

"YANBU I would not want my DD or DS going on a trip without a phone"

I really don't know how parents of pupils I taught in the 1980s brought themselves to rip off the cotton wool to allow their children on the school trip to Boulogne.

I think it's sensible.
Saves the inevitable over analysing and posting of social media photos by parents and students as well as parents who will moan at the school about their child spending £1000s watching YouTube abroad and no caps/roaming sorted with the operator.

There is a huge difference between going on an exchange and a school trip.

YABU

YANBU to be unhappy, but I think it has to be a wholesale rethink for all the kids, not just yours.

My DS went on a similar trip at a similar age, and ended up having to call us late at night because all the kids were barricaded into their rooms, terrified while someone else in the hotel went on a drunken rampage up and down the corridors. All the kids had phones, but most of them thought their parents would be angry with them for running up a big phone bill from abroad apparently not realising this is WHY we give them the damn things. I ended up calming down the 6 scared kids in DS's room on my phone while DP used his to contact the teachers on the school's emergency phone number and got them to sort it all out. (They were in the bar and oblivious to it all, ffs, but that's another story.)

Bad experience all round, but far worse without a phone. Yes, we all survived in the 70s without them, but that's why we regard them as a convenience of modern living, no?

I think it's fine for them to take phones. My 2 DC have been going on the annual music trip from school every year since Y7 and they have always had phones, they are encouraged to take phones, DS etc as it's a 36 hour journey (Yorkshire to Spain on the coach). School holds a meeting a couple of weeks before the trip where they stress that phones are the responsibility of the kids, they need to know how to use them abroad properly so as not to rack up huge charges etc, not post photos of other kids without permission etc. In short the kids are expected to behave in a mature way, and they seem to, and we are talking about 50 kids on a trip here.
OP, I would imagine that, despite the ban, there will be plenty of kids who take phones with them, do what you think is best. Hope your DS enjoys his trip!

It's not fine for them to take the phone if the school has said 'no' though, is it?

The only people who seem to think its OK for kids to take phones aren't ones who run trips!

I'm just thankful I don't teach and have to get involved in this stuff any more. I still don't see why it's supposed to be acceptable to supply a phone directly against specific instructions.

"YANBU I would not want my DD or DS going on a trip without a phone"
Why not?

I would rather that my kids can contact me if they need to.

The schools used to say no phones, but no one took any notice and the kids still took phones, so they don't say anything about them now. Same as in school, they are not supposed to have them at school, but they all do.

If you're asking other people to act in loco parentis for a week for no extra pay, the least you can do is play by the rules.

Parents like you shouldn't send your kids in school trips

The schools used to say no phones, but no one took any notice and the kids still took phones, so they don't say anything about them now. Same as in school, they are not supposed to have them at school, but they all do

Parents with this attitude are responsible for pupils who have no respect for school policy and who make teaching so difficult.