School confiscating phone

[Whatshouldmynamebe321]

AIBU to think secondary school should not keep confiscated mobile phone overnight?

12 year old dd walks home alone and school had confiscated her phone during the day (this I fully support as discipline for breaching rules).
But they refused to return at end of day unless a parent collects it.

I'm a single parent and work fulltime, so unavailable during school opening hours to collect it. I feel very upset the school see fit to send her off on a lone walk home without it. I was oblivious, at work assuming she has the device to call for help if there was an emergency. We don't have a landline so, it remains her only method of communication if a disaster happened at home.

Do other schools do this?
I don't understand the logic of it having to be returned to a parent. Surely most parents work and are unable to collect before the school closes which is about 4pm.

My DDs school did this and I fully support it.

I wish every school did it. DSs school doesn't and no surprise, it's a crap school with behaviour problems.

You are being inconvenienced so that you tell DD "get your phone confiscated again and there'll be trouble at home for you as well"

You should back the school.

Teach your child to follow the rules about using her phone or get her a non smart brick to keep in her bag. Problem solved.

I agree

@kisstheblarney just back to this now... in England there is very draconian guidance to say they can confiscate phones, but I'm in Scotland and the guidance leaves a lot to the discretion of the schools, with the suggestion that in bags and switched off is the default.
In both countries it would be very interesting to see what would happen if phones were lost, damaged or stolen whilst kept in school overnight especially as phones are not just for calls and texts but access to travel, money etc through apps. I think any case brought in Scotland would be in clear breach of children's rights.
An agreed policy means nothing if the children themselves haven't been given any input to the process.

And don't forget they could sue if a dinosaur 🦕 were chasing them down the street and they couldn't ring for help!

The whataboutery is unreal!

Tell the kids to obey the rules, then the phone won't be lost by the school! It's a natural consequence if it is anyway!

This was done to death a few weeks ago.

Yes, other schools have a similar policy.

Yes, I agree with it. The school is looking for your support to reinforce the rules. Children of parents who work with the school on sharing responsibility for following behaviour policy and enforcing educational standards tend to do better. Teens learn best from natural consequences. A natural consequence of being on your phone during lessons is losing said phone until it's convenient for you to collect it.

@ShitChristamasPresents I don't consider you miserable one bit, and the point about not being mugged is a valid one.

I’ve worked in a few schools and I’ve never heard of this before.

I would absolutely be complaining.

I am all for confiscating phones, but they should be allowed to be collected at the end of the day by the student.

Most students have their bus passes on their phones so how will they get home.

And their parents work so aren’t available to come and collect it on any day whilst the school office is still open.

It relies on a parent having to ask to leave work early to simply pick up a phone, which in many places is very difficult to do.

@AnonnyMouseDave out of interest why do you not have a choice? Was there only one option on the form?

@kisstheblarney it's not whataboutery. Stupid knee jerk rules where phones are confiscated for days are the reason why schools are in such a mess. Getting your phone out in class is stupid and pushing it but there's a world of difference between that and sending bullying or inappropriate stuff- the consequences here are way out of proportion and not natural at all. How do schools escalate from minor teenage nonsense to serious infractions ? Also who is responsible if the phone is lost or stolen... bet it lands on the headteacher's desk along with everything else

Secondary school teacher here. The rule at my school is it is collected the nxt day. The kids know it as do the parents. If it's confiscated on a Friday, the earliest it can be retrieved is Mon. Phones are a menace in school much of the time

One of the main reasons schools are in such a mess is because some parents undermine teachers and think their little darling's rights trump everything and everyone else's. In the op's situation I'd communicate with the school, explain what steps I'd taken at home to ensure my child understood what would happen if it happened again and explain my personal situation about it being extremely difficult to collect it. The school would most likely meet me half way, having understood the efforts I'd made and having been reassured that as a parent I took it seriously. They'd most likely thank me for my support, ds would get his phone back the following day, and we all move on.

Our school does this.

After the second time of being called in to collect it at the end of day, I made it clear that I would refuse to collect it until the Friday of that week. Follow a simple rule or lose your phone for 1 - 5 days. It didn’t happen again.

By using the abundance of public telephone boxes.

If they returned the phone at the end of the school day where is the learning objective when they shouldn’t have it on them anyway?
yes it’s a pain for parents, and this is how it is hammered home as to speak, as it is a huge inconvenience to parents.
Students tend to get phones out for often no good, some rile the teacher and another films it and puts it on TikTok, sometimes it’s passive bullying, or could be general internet surfing in lesson time. It is staff dread with mobile phones and students, so this really has to be fully supported with the school and not supportive to the student in the wrong.
Best way forward is for schools to remove phones at start of day and return at end of day, any caught with phone, although that is a big responsibility to the school and somewhere safe to store them.

Not my DS, but his friend dropped his bag in the corridor one day and his phone skidded out along the floor, to the feet of one of the deputy heads, who confiscated the phone on the spot.

Like my DS the kid has his school bus pass on an app, so he couldn't get the bus home. So he walked. Almost 9 miles, in the tipping down rain, It was November so dark, along busy duel carriageways and roads with no footpath.

When he was an hour late his mum rang school who said he'd left at normal time. No mention of the phone. She rang round the friends she knew and eventually found one who knew that the phone had been confiscated. Eventually she called the police who found him still 2 miles from home. He's 11 years old.

Quite rightly she went ballistic at the school, and the Police weren't impressed either.
Not everyone lives close to school. Not everyone can just wander safely home. They left a child in a very dangerous situation.
He'd not even done anything wrong.

It's highly unlikely that this is the first offence.
We confiscate for return at the end of the day. After X number then a parent has to come in & collect it.

My father says he quite misses getting reverse charges calls from "DadIt'sMeComeAndGetMe."

didn’t as he’s a good kid and isn’t usually on his phone in lessons etc, he was using it at lunchtime. In my opinion that’s not causing a problem to his education and he got top grades. Trust me there’s plenty of kids in his year that cause constant disruption in lessons etc and he wasn’t one of them.

An adherent of my favourite motto, 'Discipline is what other people's children need' !

Most of which were vandalised, had pee, puke or worse in the box. Never mind what was smeared on the handset itself.

Teacher here. Being filmed, uploaded to social media and ridiculed is not fun. Confiscating a phone for it to be returned at the time they were only supposed to be allowed access it anyway is not a punishment. It's also a huge waste of school secretary's limited time to be doling them out at the end of the day. Your daughter hopefully has learned about consequences as you are now involved.

@notafruit school should have 100% rang the parent to tell them. We always ring (and usually get a mouthful).
We’ve allowed students to take phones for buses or borrow money. It’s very poor not to have a policy for this kind of thing.

yes

teach your kid

So how does this work for kids who ARE the carers?

I'm really wondering why his parents didn't teach him an alternative strategy? It's mind boggling isn't it? You're in a really bad way DS or DD, go to a shop (mine chose a pub 🙄, sat on a bar stool when DH arrived with a free Coca Cola!) and explain the situation.

They're some really lacking parents, that don't assume lost, stolen or confiscated phones, they just assume everything is always going to run as clockwise!

Did you speak to your friend about teaching her child what to do in an "emergency"?

Or did you just lambast the school for imposing their sanctions? Which she most probably agreed to?