AIBU to expect this to be replaced

[Lookingforastronauts]

I'm so angry. Ds just came home from school and a child had taken his phone and smashed it on the ground. It's obviously broken and unusable now. The child was dealt with by a teacher.

Am I being unreasonable to want a new fucking phone from this person/his parents?

It wasn't expensive or valuable. It's the principle. It's a like for like replacement.

Absolutely. Can you call the parents? Or see them at school?

I don't know who the parents are, he's just started high school, I'm so disappointed. It's not a smartphone but it was a hassle to find a decent 'dumb phone' (ironically not one that was a flimsy as the argos 99p ones).

I don't know what the protocol is, can I contact the school and find out who the parents are or should I handle it privately, I can probably find out.

It will depend on your schools policy on having phones, I'd imagine. If they're not allowed in school, then I can't imagine them getting involved.

I would do it through the school, OP. Write a letter explaining what happened, what the phone cost, and asking them to ensure that the parents of the other child pay up for the damage that has been done to your property. At the same time you might mention that you expect the school to be dealing with this kind of behaviour proactively.

If it irrefutable that the other child broke it on purpose as you have described, then absolutely! The school should be putting you in touch with the other parents. However, I suspect that in the end you will need to claim on insurance, because, unfortunately, unless there were other independent witnesses to the incident (i.e. a teacher and not your child's friends or just your child), the child responsible will probably claim it was an accident.

I doubt he's allowed to have his phone out on the playground so the school would say it was his responsibility. Check their website for the policy maybe.

I’d want it paying for. Our school have an out of sight turned off policy except from certain areas in the school. Regardless however on the school rules about phones the child who broke it committed a crime of criminal damage. Just because it happened inside a school building doesn’t change the law and not should the other child be allowed to get away with it. I’d tell the school they have 24 hours to give the other parents your details (they can’t give you their) or you will report the incident to the police.

I hate how secondary schools think any crime that happened on premises is just dealt with via them.

I mean you wouldn’t accept a co workers breaking your phone and your boss just being well you shouldn’t be on it during work hours and I’ve had a word so it’s all good now 👍🏻

I strongly disagree with pps. The other parents should be paying whether or not it was deliberate or accidental. And if it was an accident, then explaining to their child that he should be careful with other people's property and expect consequences if he isn't.

It depends on school policy. One of my dcs went to a school where you were only allowed a switched off phone in your bag. It was never allowed out of the bag in school hours. So I think they'd have said one of the reasons for the policy was to avoid things like this. My other dc's school is much more lenient & they can listen to music during some lessons and use phones in rainy lunchtimes.

I guess the school might have cctv so would know exactly what happened i.e. whether it was deliberate damage or an accident, so they should be able to give you more info, though will probably not be able to say what action has been taken against the other child.

I'd check if the school's phone policy is online (or in any parent-school agreement you might have signed or is printed in a homework diary or similar). Read that through that before contacting the school.

The school policy doesn’t matter unless op is asking the school to replace it.

It’s quite simple.

Child 1 broke child 2’s phone. Child 1’s parents need to replace it. A child aged 11 and over is over the age of criminal responsibility.

Contracts don’t override law.

I understand why you are angry, but that is the risk you take allowing a phone to be taken into school.

Sounds like school have dealt with any deliberate actions....not sure what else they can do.

Worth checking if there is a school insurance policy covering damage (there was at DD's school, but that was an independent). If not covered by school, does your home insurance or phone insurance cover the phone outside of the home ?

You need to go through the school, and find out exactly what happened first. Although it seems that you’re owed a new phone, it’s not always that simple.

Don’t expect the school to be especially helpful if your son had his phone out when he shouldn’t have done in the first place though. My sons school has a rule that phones were never to be out of bags during school hours unless they went to reception to use them, so they were unsympathetic with phone issues between students unless there was bullying.

Absolutely contact the parents if you can. Whether the school will get involved depends on their policy. Ours very clearly states that they do not get involved in loss or damage to phones on school premises. They have to be handed in at the start of each day and collected at the end.

School phone policy is vague. I'd hoped for strict phone rules, off and out of sight would be great. But they seem to be using them in class. Which I'm not happy with. If smartphones are required for lesson delivery I'm even less happy about this incident as I don't have an unlimited supply of phones for each time it's damaged.

Thank you all for your comments, they've been very helpful, I will be contacting the school.

I understand why you are angry, but that is the risk you take allowing a phone to be taken into school.

I don't agree that anyone should consider the risk of someone taking a child's phone off them and smashing it. They're not toddlers with no impulse control. Like pp said, you wouldn't expect a colleague to do it, so why is it more acceptable for a fellow pupil?

I don't agree that anyone should consider the risk of someone taking a child's phone off them and smashing it. They're not toddlers with no impulse control. Like pp said, you wouldn't expect a colleague to do it, so why is it more acceptable for a fellow pupil?

Have you ever set foot in a school?

Of course yes, ideally he should have it replaced by whoever smashed it, not sure how you can make that happen though.

Of course I've set foot in a school. I have a child myself. I don't buy him a phone thinking 'well, it's going to get smashed but hey ho, that's kids for you'.