Phones in school

[Bree82]

Ok don’t know if I’m being old fashioned or stupid here. And I get times are changing ie technology etc. So I understand using computers more in school and for homework.
but why are mobile phones allowed in high school?

it bothers me that kids think nothing of filming fights etc at school and passing it around etc
so many teens I know can’t even look up from phone to say hi and I don’t mind people using phone a lot - but why does it make some people so rude?!
how can we let kids have their phones but still behave respectful etc?
I get this is not every kid maybe just the ones I know and I wonder if the answer is having their phones less, or just helping them learn the balance …
also if there are any teachers who can let me know benefits of phones at school and if they agree or not? I would like to understand more. :)

There is no benefit to phoned in school
but there is also no way to police it. How exactly would you stop it?

most people send their children to school with phones so they are contactable when making their way to/from school. Seems obvious.

How would you suggest getting mobile phones off of 800 teenagers?

Yes, it's astonishing how many kids simply disappeared off the face of the earth on their way to and from school before mobiles were available.

Of course, every child needs one so they can call a parent if they're being abducted, or use it to fight off an assailant...

800? Lol try 1600

I don’t know any school around here that allows phones in school. They have to be in bags turned off. If they are seen or heard even accidentally in school they lose them for the entire half term. They can only turn them on once they are off the school premises.

Personally I'd ban them in schools, they cause too much harm and are simply not needed at school.

I think most schools operate a no phone policy. At my school this means fones should not be out on the school site. Realistically this rule is probably broken at break times. If a pupil had their phone out in lessons it is automatically confiscated and cannot be retrieved till the nxt day. This can be a very confrontational situation
Some staff allow pupils to take pictures of information that is on the board. This is a valuable thing. I do think thr negatives outweigh the positives.

The school takes a child’s property from them for half a term due to an accident?

We had phone boxes then, they don’t.

The crime has increased significantly since we were kids so yes I think they do need a way of contacting if they need to. Plans change, they often need to tell me they are going to the football centre, or going to the park so it affects when I pick them up etc. Sometimes I need to contact them to tell them I have had a change or work plans and tell them what is happening. Absolutely nothing wrong with having a phone for travelling to and from school.

@GneissWork I think that is fair enough, all children must know the consequences of their phone causing disruption.

Yes if their phone goes off because they haven’t turned it off they lose the phone. They enforce the phone rule very strictly.

How would a phone going off at interval/lunchtime cause disruption?

Im a teacher and my own phone has gone off in class!

And what if a parent turns up demanding the phone back? It’s literally not enforceable.

I’m not sure how it can be enforced in secondary, but primaries absolutely don’t need mobile phones.

The Tories were considering a national ban for primaries but backtracked; not sure why as they would have had overwhelming public support for it.

Should be banned. Terrible all round. The leading schools in the UK do not allow them.

we used to get told to take them out during lesson to take pictures of the board to save us from spending ages taking notes and not getting to the lesson in time, then the policy changed and became stricter because the school merged into an academy we couldn't even have them at break which was shit because me and my friends were in separate classes so we had no clue where to meet.

Then loads of people left including myself, not over phones but because the academy changed a lot of the rules that were the reason a lot of people chose the school in the first place, i just think that phones are a good tool to have in class and demonising them won't help anyone.

Also you can say 'just have an agreed place to meet' but have you met teenage girls, we never new when anyone was getting out of lesson if we didn't have phones so we'd just all waste our breaktimes.

@RobinRobinMouse but adults phones disrupt too, i remember most of my teachers getting a phone call in class because they had kids or had a phone call from the doctors/hospital and nobody would dare take their phones off of them

@GneissWork Just having the phone around may cause disruption, doesnt matter when - what messages are being sent/photos taken/videos recorded?! Also a safeguarding nightmare. As long as the school don't keep them forever I think it probably is enforceable, I believe confiscation is still allowed. It is also safer for the children not to have them.

@BooksAndHooks and parents are completely okay with their property being taken for an entire term, something that they likely got their children to keep them safe, that's ridiculous and so unreasonable

@lailamaria Also not acceptable, in fact in most schools I have worked with in recent times adult mobile phones must be in a locked drawer. There is an office number for emergencies.

A few things at play here.

• a phone ringing in class is not that disruptive. A quick glance at the class usually prompts the phones owner to quickly flick it to silent. Then, half the class check their own phones are on silent. Takes less than 30 seconds, no words need to be spoken. What would be disruptive would be for me to stop my lesson to confiscate said phone. Potentially this would escalate the situation too.
• Every kid has a phone. They use it before/after school, at lunchtime, etc. It’s unenforceable at these times.
• Parents WANT their children to have access to phones, and there is little to no parental support (except from the parents who’s children only use their phones appropriately)
• a phone can be a good tool in school, and we simply don’t have the physical resources. Sometimes a question will come up that I don’t know the answer to and I can ask the kid to quickly Google it. Sometimes someone doesn’t finish the work and I can get them to take a quick picture of the board to do at home. I’ve got one boy who is colourblind who takes a photo of things and puts it into greyscale as he can see it easier. They can add homework to their calendar. They can email me things.

They should definitely be banned. Anyone caught with a phone in school should have it confiscated.
Phones are so harmful to developing brains. There's been recent research that all those TikTok's and quick videos impairs memory.
We already know it's harmful to their well-being. We should be taking this more seriously and it should be down to us as parents, rather than leaving it to teachers to police.

@RobinRobinMouse Just having a phone around is a safeguarding concern, what the hell, plus it's not fair to keep them for the entire term, that's literal months, also it's not up to you to say it's safer for children not to have them, what if they're a young carer, what if they get into an emergency outside of the house when they're alone, what if they need to get themselves out of a situation and can't call their parents or a taxi, what if there's a fire at home. I'm sorry but you cannot justify taking somebody else's possessions for an entire term just because they broke a rule once, also if the parents were to go to school they would have to hand it to them because it's not their property

Our local secondary is 30 miles away. It's the only one available at all and the kids travel by public transport. There is definitely a necessity for children to be able to make contact with an appropriate adult if something went wrong.