Ban on mobile phones in schools

[bytheby]

Gavin Williams has proposed this and announced a 6 week consultation. Does anyone know how we can feed into the consultation?

I am in favour. In fact I don't think children/teens need phones at all. If people are worried about safety walking home then there should be a simple phone with a map function and ability to call available.

I am a sensible adult and I find it difficult to control my own mobile phone use so how can we expect children to.

Children accessing porn. Children unable to 'switch off'/addicted to screens. Children being contacted by older strangers. Children having unrealistic images of how they 'should' look pushed onto them by social media. Children unable to escape school bullying (or just a break from their peers) at home. Children losing the ability to converse. Children more anxious than ever. etc etc.

If your childhood was pre mobile phones do you think it honestly would have been improved by having one?!

Anyway, if anyone knows how to become a part of the consultation please let me know! I have googled to no avail.

And how does having tech at home stop any of the darker sides of the net?
Why are 9 year olds on twitter, facebook, snapchat, WhatsApp? School don't tell them to download and the ones are staff need to be educated more. It's not like these sites don't have age restrictions for reasons. No wonder they think they can go on any site when parents are setting up underage accounts on the basis of well such and such has it.

@AttaGirrrrl, my dcs school is making having an iPad compulsory and has done so for 5 years now.
Children who can’t buy one can have one lent to them by the school on a daily basis. The children still need to be able to access a computer/online stuff whilst at home.

I disagree, phones are useful in lessons at times.

At ds's school there were no phones allowed on or out of their bags during school hours or they were taken away and a parent had to come and collect the phone from the office. This worked well.

Don't most schools have a pretty robust policy around this already?? I don't know of any secondary schools where the kids are allowed to freely use their phones on site.

Frankly there are a many more important things I'd like the Education Secretary to be focusing his attention on right now!

I don't think it's the right decision.

There's two local schools in the area who have totally different idea on mobiles. One has complete ban, will confiscate any phones (until July, which goes down especially well when it's confiscated in September with an expensive contract!). Other allows them, but not to be seen inside without permission.

I know children at both schools. At both schools almost every child has a phone. However the school that doesn't allow phones just uses that as an excuse to ignore any issues raised by them. Threats to kill by text? Well the victim shouldn't have had their phone in school to receive it... And it can't possibly have come from someone at their school because no one has a phone in school to do it...
The other school deals very quickly with issues when they come up, and has generally been good at educating the children around use of phones.

It may be relevant as well that the school that allows phones also has a much wider catchment, with a lot of children coming by public transport, for which having a phone makes sense.

Mobile phones have been banned, i.e put in lockers all day for about two years in Victoria, though I think my school were ahead of the curve on this. It's no big deal, though to be fair all our students have laptops, which are also banned during recess and lunch.

When the ban was introduced nation-wide, there was no doubt that the move was perceived, like the Gavster's, as a cheap hey look at me I'm doing something.

Some decisions have to be taken collectively for the good of all children

But it isn't for the good of all children is it?

For the same reasons the government cannot force people to have their children vaccinated for Measles, they don't get to decide whether I permit my child to carry a phone when travelling.

MargaretThursday But the solution isn't to allow children to use phones.....

Ffs they'll be blabbing about going back to basics again soon!

@chickenyhead

For the same reasons the government cannot force people to have their children vaccinated for Measles, they don't get to decide whether I permit my child to carry a phone when travelling.

No, but they can decide which items your child is allowed to bring into school.

@OppsUpsSide

They should actively use them in the classroom, a much more realistic example of working life and full opportunity to model effective and safe use. I wouldn’t support a ban, it’s a rubbish way of teaching children how to use their phones effectively.

ii can honestly say i've NEVER had a job where i was allowed to use my personal mobile phone during my work hours. Every job i've had (retail, pensions, bar, kitchen, restaurants, teaching/nursery assistant) they've not even been allowed on my person.

I don't think kids are going to buy a special phone for walking home but I don't see why they can't lock their phones away during the school day. Technology is very useful. Kids should be proficient at typing, researching online, using appropriate software etc but this doesn't need to be on a device which has their entire social life thrust in their face at the same time.

Taking photos of homework?! - it never harmed me to write out my homework!

It did me, I couldn't always write it down in time and I didn't always write it correctly.

I went to school pre phones (not everyone had a land line) but times change.

There are apps that are useful eg they can be used as a 'buzzer' for a quiz. They inadvertently have loads of uses for children with SEN.

Instead of banning them schools should have an app that links to timetables, homework etc on it and this should be compulsory to run this app when at school ideally with a tracker so you can see where little Johnny is when he hasn't turned up to class, SMS detentions to child and parent.

We are wasting what could be a valuable resource.

Good luck with that. It will never happen.

The only reason my child had an iPad to type her work on when she was younger was because WE provided it, provided the software for it (in terms of a very basic word processor we could remove things like predictive text from and with minimal things to go wrong and cause problems in the class) and we printed the work out at home every night. She took it to and from school to do her class work on when she found writing was so difficult that the gap between what she physically could record with her poor motor skills and what her brain could produce was becoming a gaping chasm.

Covid stopped us taking it to and from school - we offered to provide a device in-school to stay there but the current class teacher has decided to wage a war on DD and refused to allow her to access any of the things that support her SEND (we're in the middle of moving her school now). This year DD hates school - previously she would have held her own with technology, recording tasks to play back as her working memory is very poor, reducing the writing burden down for her, photographing worksheets to type onto them and when she was having occlusion eye drops for her lazy eye she would photograph and zoom in on printed text if she couldn't read it.

Writing slope, special pencils she finds easier to grasp, fiddle toys that are not annoying or disruptive in the class... we've had to resource it all.

As for phones - mine have spacewalk watches which have a basic phone and text message facility which I set to disable during school hours. I have vibrating alarms set up for DD at certain points during the day to remind her of things that she needs to do or remember to check and pack up. It all helps her to function on a level with her peers (academically she's capable of doing so).

At DS's independent school, phones have to be handed in at the office. The campus is covered by a signal blocker to thwart those who try to smuggle in phones. The head was tired of pupils not talking to each other at break because they were all on their phones.

My primary aged son uses his phone at school as he is a type 1 diabetic. It's revolutionised his life being able to track his blood sugars, alarms when heading high or low, calculates insulin doses and works out carbohydrate content of his meals.

My daughter who is also primary uses hers to control her implanted hearing device.

Both my kids would really suffer without their mobile devices. Yet some know it all's want to take them away!! 😞🤬 Isn't having a disability difficult enough already?

Schools already have policies on this. The government are just trying to become popular by tapping into parents fears.

It reminds me of the Facebook 'share this if you think cookery should be taught in schools' posts... when it already is...

Our high school have never allowed phones at all in school. If they are seen or heard in school at all they are confiscated until the end of term. GCSE pupils are allowed them for certain lessons, my son uses his for media and photography lessons.

This thread just shows how out of touch the education minister is.

These important ministerial jobs should be properly interviewed for and the job given to the most qualified not your latest drinking buddy or whatever.

@chickenyhead

For the same reasons the government cannot force people to have their children vaccinated for Measles, they don't get to decide whether I permit my child to carry a phone when travelling.

They aren’t banned when travelling but are banned from use on school premises.

@LetItGoHome

My primary aged son uses his phone at school as he is a type 1 diabetic. It's revolutionised his life being able to track his blood sugars, alarms when heading high or low, calculates insulin doses and works out carbohydrate content of his meals.

My daughter who is also primary uses hers to control her implanted hearing device.

Both my kids would really suffer without their mobile devices. Yet some know it all's want to take them away!! 😞🤬 Isn't having a disability difficult enough already?

I think plenty of people have said that devices should be available for children with SEN.

I see OP has flounced off as this didn’t go how she wanted it.

My teenager’s school is very strict, phones off and in bags on school premises. DD has learning difficulties (only diagnosed after first lock down and working at home and me seeing how hard she was finding things) she now uses a Chromebook for school and has access to the school WiFi but in some classrooms it isn’t good enough. Those teachers have allowed her to hotspot from her phone as that enables the adjustments the school have made for her.

DS has to use his phone in certain lessons, and not allowed to use it in others. Teachers communicate with them via Teams in-between lessons, so he needs to be able to pick up his messages.