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.

Just to say mine wasn't because he got his phone confiscated! It was dead and he got lost, back from a friends house!

Sounds like being so reliant on his phone has made him a bit lacking in brain cells

@notafruit in that situation there is no way that if that child had explained and asked for help from a member of staff he’d have been walking 11 miles home. He could have asked to call a parent. Or asked to borrow the bus fare from his tutor. Or asked to borrow a friends phone.

Sounds like being so reliant on his phone has made him a bit lacking in brain cells
Absolutely.

I sincerely hope none of the ones on here who agree with the overnight conviscation of phones have also posted advocating for a cashless society. Because that would be hypocritical

I certainly hope these schools are as proactive about dealing with bullying that happens after school hours as they are with keeping phones after school hours

And i dont have kids. But i was one once (before mobile phones) and certainly experienced hypocrisy from teachers

@notafruit Thats ridiculous Im not surprised the police wernt impressed.

I sincerely hope none of the ones on here who agree with the overnight conviscation of phones have also posted advocating for a cashless society.Because that would be hypocritical
No it wouldn't because there's more ways to pay cashless than just a mobile.
I'm not in favour of a cashless society though

I certainly hope these schools are as proactive about dealing with bullying that happens after school hours as they are with keeping phones after school hours
Usually bullying out of school comes into school. Funnily enough a lot of the bullying that happens out of school is conducted via mobile phones, technology and social media. It's very difficult to get some parents to accept that giving their teens and pre-teens endless access might mean their kids are using it to be unpleasant.
Either way, a school having a phone because it was used during the school day has nothing to do with what parents enable their children to do outside of school.

And i dont have kids. But i was one once (before mobile phones) and certainly experienced hypocrisy from teachers
Most people will encounter hypocrisy from most other people at some point.
Not sure this is a gotcha.

The worst bullying I have seen is by mobile phone. It gives children constant access to other children. No break. No respite. I feel sorry for children today and am glad mine are grown up. It's too much responsibility for ones so young particularly when some people refuse to parent and put in some boundaries around phone use.

Teachers are human beings and not a generic mass. That's why we have policies we stick to within schools so that any infringements of the rules are agreed. Hopefully if your worth your salt you stick to them. I can't over exaggerate how many problems phones cause.

When I was a teenager we had no house phone and mobile phones hadn’t been invented.

Yabu.

Its a more relevant consequence. If they get it back no trouble at the end of the day, there's little/no risk to breaking the rules.

Presumably you had a payphone in walking distance then. Which isn't the case these days.

There may have been phone boxes, but I still couldn’t have phoned home as there was no home phone. Mobile phones are mainly used as toys by most children.

To be fair, the kid is 11 and just started high school. They've gone from a small school in walking distance of home, to a huge school, with nothing much nearby apart from busy roads.
The teacher who confiscated the phone is not known for his reason. He took the phone and although the kid said that his bus pass was on the phone the teacher waved him off shouting about school policy.
He's quite a shy boy so probably panicked a bit and didn't think things through like an adult would.
However, there are quite a few kids classed as vulnerable there, and as the school is large but remote most use the bus. The school itself is cashless, and bringing any money in is discouraged.

It's easy to say he's being dim, but I really don't think that's fair.
Phones should be returned at the end of the day.

I live somewhere that has earthquakes and has a potential for a tsunami. A phone won't make my child any safer in a real emergency they don't work. You need to teach your child how to safely get help if needed. Local neighbors, maybe their computer, a shopkeeper or a place of worship. And to leave a note if they go somewhere. We have learnt texts don't always go through if it's important phone or if you go somewhere leave a note.

Not in my village

@quisensoucie how old are you? I thought it used to standard (possibly compulsory) for villages to have a public phone. It's only in the last decade or so that they've been removed.

They've gone from a small school in walking distance of home, to a huge school, with nothing much nearby apart from busy roads.

All the more reason to be proactive as a parent and prepare them for secondary school. Pushing them out of the nest when they have had such a small protected childhood is the unreasonable thing in this situation.

Surely the school has an office or he has a tutor he could have gone to if he felt like he was in a situation he couldn't handle. Could he not have used a friends phone to call a parent?

Before my own dd started secondary school I made sure she knew the route inside out. She learnt three family members mobile phone numbers off by heart and she had a twenty pound note for emergencies.

I think schools are between a rock and a hard place on this. Clearly phones in schools present a major challenge that need a robust disciplinary process to prevent misuse, but depriving children of phones overnight without warning may put some children at risk. If a child were throwing their shoes around in class, would it be reasonable to confiscate their shoes and leave them to walk home barefoot? Clearly not. And yet confiscating a phone can in some situations be worse. The example cited of an 11 year old child being left to walk home 9 miles is a case in point - yes, this was a stupid decision by the child but I think the school seriously failed in a duty of care here.

I think schools should be able to confiscate phones overnight but have a very clear process in place to ensure duty of care - for example, making contact with a parent before the phone is taken overnight to inform them, and ensuring that if the child is reliant on the phone for any essentials (e.g travel, communicating with family) that the school has ensured the child has a safe alternative plan (e.g allowing them to make a phone call, lend money for bus fare etc) - the onus should be on the school to ensure they have checked this before the phone is taken overnight.

Those advocating a total ban on phones in schools might like to know that increasingly DCs with Type I diabetes use insulin pumps which link to phones through bluetooth. Alerts for high or low blood sugars which require action are sent by app to the phone. This is becoming recommended as best practice, and I doubt that school rules can trump disability discrimination legislation.

A minority issue at the moment, for which individual exemptions can be made, but it isn't too hard to envisage a time when other medical conditions are managed in a similar way. I'm hugely sympathetic to individual teachers, but I think schools, and those setting the policies, might have to develop alternative ways to navigate this issue over the next decade or so.

@thing47 I teach with two chronic conditions and am not allowed my phone. I just have to manage things old school sometimes and I know myself well enough that I can judge if I am unwell as an emergency.
They are ways round things. And I think other students would understand if there was a student that needed a phone for medical reasons. It hasn't come up with us yet.

It does illustrate though that society as a whole is increasingly moving towards an assumption that people have access to a (smart)phone. I inadvertantly left my phone at home the other day and couldn't pay for parking. Admittedly your average 13 year old isn't going to need to pay for parking but phones are becoming the default for so many things these days that I don't think schools can just assume that a phone is a "luxury" item that can be confiscated without ensuring confiscation doesn't put the child at risk.

@CroccyWoccy any school I have worked at either have a very strict and well explained phone policy
Or
Confiscation would be for several offences.

We always give pupils the chance to make correct choices eg hand over phone first thing.

We have had situations where burner phones were hidden in the panels of the school toilets for drug dealing so we have to be strict.

And also it's a safeguarding issue. We would always make sure children got home safely and tbh our rule is 'a responsible adult' picks up contraband so they can normally rustle someone up :)

Yes our school do it. First time they get caught child can collect it. 2nd time a parent has to collect it. They’ve been given a chance, broken the rules again so it’s only fair.

When it happened to my son I took my time collecting it. Think it was 3 days. Tough on him . He knew the risk.

@stomachameleon We would always make sure children got home safely

I think that’s the key thing - irrespective of the policy, irrespective of how many prior offences the school should be ensuring that depriving the child of the phone doesn’t leave them without a means to get home safely or make essential communication. That doesn’t mean a phone can’t be confiscated, but does mean the school should have a conversation with the child before they leave to ensure the child has the means to get home, an emergency contact is informed of overnight confiscation and the child has an opportunity to make any essential calls before leaving. That would seem to be basic safeguarding.