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.

Maybe there is a market for mobile jammers for schools.

No offence, but you can't do this with Type I diabetes. You can be old school, for sure (I am myself) and use injections, but you can't just switch between old school and new tech because the two approaches are fundamentally different - they use different types of insulin for a start.

A school doesn't get to dictate how a pupil manages a chronic medical condition. If a certain approach is regarded as 'best practice' and the expert medical team deems it the correct management system for the child, then a school will have adapt accordingly.

I appreciate the situation might not have arisen yet. As I said in my previous post, it is still a relatively new approach to diabetes management. But as @CroccyWoccy points out, it is another area of life where smartphones are increasingly going to be enmeshed into everyday life.

@thing47 but mobile phones cannot be used in all sorts of workplaces, for far more serious reasons than just "school policy". If they are that vital, then they will need to be disconnected from commercial products with Internet and camera access.

But how is that a deterrent? Confiscate it, but give it back at the time they would be allowed to use it anyway? There are no negatives for the child here.

Sure, but this thread is about mobile phone use in schools by children. Work is different as it concerns adults and we all have to make choices about what sort of work we want to do/are able to do, and we may have to accept that certain medical conditions preclude us from doing certain types of jobs, particularly where there is a possibility of it putting other people in danger. I'm sure adults with chronic medical conditions to manage do understand that.

That restriction doesn't apply to DCs in schools because schools don't get to overrule aspects of life which would be covered by the 2010 Equality Act in the same way that an employer can in specific circumstances.

@thing47 one of my students used his phone to monitor his glucose. Obviously we don't confiscate his phone. When I spoke to his parents about him misusing his phone, we agreed it would sit on my desk (within reach of the student as he sat at the front) so it was available if he needed it, but was a deterrent to using it for anything else.

Phones are an unhealthy addiction for many people. Schools should be able to confiscate them if they are detrimental to education.

Yeah but then it keeps happening. And more and more kids try using their phones in lessons, cos it's not a deterrent.

The teachers have enough on their plates.

I seem to see this a lot - that the obvious answer to escalating discipline issues is escalating punishment. Which might be true to an extent but there's obviously limits, and there comes a point where confiscating an item of personal property outside of school hours isn't reasonable.

Legally any disciplinary measure has to reasonable and proportionate and doesn't override the school's duty of care to their pupils. "They shouldn't have been dicking about with their phone then should they?" is not a reasonable justification for a confiscation that leaves a child without e.g. a means for them to get home.

There's a piece here about the legalities of it - the writer makes the point that what's reasonable varies depending on the needs of the pupil and that confiscating a phone from a younger child who lives further away from school (as per the example of the 11 year old who ended up walking 9 miles home because the didn't have access to their bus pass app) might not be reasonable: Is a school allowed to confiscate a pupil’s mobile phone? (schoolsweek.co.uk)

"They shouldn't have been dicking about with their phone then should they?" is not a reasonable justification for a confiscation that leaves a child without e.g. a means for them to get home.

Indeed. And nor is it for confiscating when it is an integral part of managing an ongoing chronic medical condition. So alternative ways of managing the situation, and punishments, must be found.

@annahay that sounds like an excellent solution. Clearly you take a very sensible, and practical, approach. I think you should be advising other schools!

On the whole, schools bring these measures in and make parents/new pupils aware of them.

At the end of the day, if parents don't like it then they should move their children to a different school where its run like a democracy (and therefore, shit)

"They shouldn't have been dicking about with their phone then should they?"

That's one thing but what about....
Accessing porn
Taking pictures
Filming staff and making memes/ uploading their image to Facebook/ insta/ WhatsApp
Bullying the sen child in the room
Bullying other children
Arranging meet ups
Accessing things that would mean we would have to approach prevent.
Photographing or filming CHIC or LAC.

The possibilities are endless and far more than 'dicking about'
Phones do not belong in a classroom.

Having a policy that parents and pupils are aware of in no way undermines the legal requirement for schools disciplinary action to be reaonable and proportionate and to have a duty of care for their pupils.

I'm not saying it's never right for a school to confisciate a child's phone overnight, but it simply being school policy doesn't mean it can be done in any given circumstance without undermining their duty of care to their pupils.

I'm not sure how anyone can defend leaving an 11yo child without a means to make a 9 mile journey home (as people have been doing) as being in line with the school's duty of care. Or indeed, a reasonable response to a phone accidentally falling out of school bag.

Don't be silly, school policies are still subject to the law of the land. Even if you have been made aware of those policies, and signed a document saying you have read them, that does not give a school some sort of 'get out' clause. Try saying 'oh we're exempt from disability discrimination legislation because all our parents have been made aware of our policies' and see what happens. 😂

‘I would have them all disappear. Even my own. Just go away and never come back’

Agree. I spend too much time on mine. And my 18y anxious daughter says she wishes phones and the internet didn’t exist 😐

You do have a fair point, however, with the best will in the world, all children are not equal. With my own children, I suspect I could of left DD2 anywhere in the country at that age, and provided she had the money she would have been able to use any public transport to get herself home. DD1, not so much. She could get lost going to the end of a straight road.
The lad in question is very timid. He'd already been bawled out by the teacher who confiscated his phone. I expect he was too scared to ask anyone else for help.
Personally my DS has a couple of quid tucked away in his bag, on the off chance his phone dies or something so he can get home. Although some of the buses only accept bus passes now, as they are not public transport but school transport only, and if you don't have a pass, you can't always get on (depends on the driver). And as the passes are mostly digital, you're stuffed without a phone.

I'm still strongly of the opinion that school should not have the right to keep the phone after school hours, and they should be returned at the end of the day.

I'm still strongly of the opinion that school should not have the right to keep the phone after school hours, and they should be returned at the end of the day.

How would you deal with children constantly using their phones in lessons and generally around the school?

You can't suspend them. There's too many of them, it takes too long and OFSTED doesn't like it.

We can't take every child's phone away and then give it back every single day. It would take too long and it's too much responsibility. Putting safes into every classroom would cost too much money. And they would just start bringing two phones.

What's the solution?

@QuillBill confiscating the phone until the end of the day should be part of the punishment. The other part should be something like doing lines or detention or litter picking at lunchtime - not keeping the phone overnight.
As many have said on here students frequently need their phone to literally get home (electronic bus pass) and do their homework (their only access to the homework apps etc).
Making a child be unable to do their homework - what does that achieve? They get behind in their work and potentially get terrible exam results which will make the school look bad !
Or for some not actually having their phone overnight might not even be a big thing. They could do much of their online life at home on their tablet/laptop and not even miss their phone. So it's not a punishment at all.
Give the phone back at the end of the day and give an actual punishment.

This is a great idea

Lunchtime is often only 30 minutes... no time for detention for pupils or teachers.
After school detentions... parents complain about school buses

We can't take every child's phone away and then give it back every single day. It would take too long and it's too much responsibility.

Round here this is what some schools do, or they have invested in lockers. V expensive but less time consuming.

How on earth did we survive before these things took over our lives, no phone & it’s absolute panic, it’s q ridiculous