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.

It's probably been said but these are expensive devices in many cases. Expensive personal items have no place in school whatever their purpose. It's too risky. You would presumably not let your child waft around with a laptop or jewellery worth £100s.

Several of our students and at least one member of staff have been mugged for their phones.

Who decided that rule in first paragraph, you are talking like this is an absolute given?

I'm not so sure it is,

Op what was it confiscated for? Why aren't you mentioning that? Teachers are probably sick and tired of phones being an issue. She did not follow the rules so the consequences are for YOU and her to deal with. You should be fuming at her not the school.

Some schools make you sign an agreement when your child goes there, mobile phone use will be on the list of rules you’ve agreed with. Kicking off just makes you look like someone who thinks rules doing specifically apply to your child.

If you don’t agree with a schools policy then send your child somewhere else. You’ll be hard pressed to find a school that does allow mobile use.

The simple fact is that if children have their phones switched off in their bags they aren’t going to get them confiscated. If your child can’t control themselves if you speak to school they will sometimes hold them during the day for them or lock them up.

Then your dd needs to keep her phone switched off in her bag if she's so vulnerable. No problem.

She should not use it to upskirt or to video other children or staff.

She should not use it to go on YouTube in a maths lesson.

She should not go on her phone during lunch to arrange with a group of other students to jump someone on the way home she had a disagreement with earlier that day.

If your DD broke the phone use rules then the school isn't being unreasonable to confiscate overnight overnight if that is the punishment published in the school rules

My DS had his phone confiscated in Y8 and he was so annoyed about it that he never broke the rules again ( now in Y13)

DD's previous school didn't allow phones on the premises at all and random searches were carried out. This was a pain for the kids who took
a bus to school as the only way to buy a bus pass was via a phone app. These kids had to pay a local shop £1 per day to store their phones for them! The school refused to make any kind of arrangement to save the parents this extra expense on top of an already expensive bus pass.

Current school have a lock box in each form room - the phone goes in at the start of the day and comes out at the end. Works well.

Our students hand them in when they come through the door. Their phones and vapes go into a pouch and we have a rule that anything voluntarily handed in is returned at the end of the day.
If they are seen and removed then a parent has to collect.
We have had so many problems with phones that it isn't worth the aggro allowing them in for example
Theft
Filming of fights
Filming of sen children
Filming of lac children.
Filming of staff which then goes into inst and tik tok.
Constant ringing/ texting/ what's apping

Anyway we have more aggro removing the vaps than the phones tbh.

@stomachameleon wow! At DD's school any child found with a vape gets an instant suspension. The Headmaater is on a mission to stop young people vaping.

The only person to blame here is your Daughter.

As a parent I have no issue with schools with systems like this. It’s the ones with mixed messages, ‘no phones but are often asked to get them out in lessons’ kind.
My daughters school had a system. Phones were allowed in ‘green’ areas in breaks. Clear, no issue with punishment if she was in a red area with it out.
My friends sons school had a similar one to yours, lock boxes. Again. Clear systems, fine. No issue.
My sons had a super strict zero tolerance, seen and loose it for a fortnight to be picked up by a parent. Told not to even bring them on site. No lock boxes. Some teachers though wanted videos used, photos taken or sound recording in music etc. Some scatty kids would then leave it turned on in their bag after the lesson and get a scam call later in the day, phone lost. It just set kids up to fail having to balance the policy and the learning.

At my sons school a fight was said to be filmed, then pupils were heavily pressured into handing in videos of the fight to be used in the suspension review. It was expected in their zero tolerance phone school it was recorded and they really pushed kids. Kids were kept in at break. No film, as far as I know, surfaced. I’m sure if there was one it would’ve circulated around on social media given the circumstances.
Just mixed messages

@Whinge if the child doesn't do their punishment (ie lines) then they move up to the next level of punishment (detention). Don't turn up to detention then up to next level (isolation) and so on.

You need to tell the school that your daughter needs her phone for reasons of safety and that they are putting her in danger by refusing to give it back at the end of the day.

Admiral aim, but surely he should focus on ensuring that kids get the best education possible?

So you prefer 3 (or possibly more) attempts at punishing the child, each one escalating, and possibly lasting hours / days, rather than the phone being confiscated and then collected by a parent?

@AnonnyMouseDave she needs to tell her daughter to obey rules and not have her phone confiscated putting herself in danger....

When will parents teach their children responsibility for their own actions?

Is she walking home through the trackless wastes of Alaska? Or downtown Detroit? No? She'll be fine.

Regarding the vapes, if it's anything like our school, the habitual vapers are missing their education due to vaping in the toilets during lessons...

Our Head found hundreds of vapes stuffed behind toilet cisterns.

He really shouldn't have to waste his time on this!

I agree. You don't say what the exact rules are but I think phones should be handed back at the end of the day, repeat offenders it gets escalated.
I am also a single mother and my daughter takes the tube to school and comes home after dark. It was good to be able to see that she got to school on time and when she was heading home. Also she could call me from the station if there were issues with the tube, or if games had been cancelled (in a neighbouring borough requiring collection) - there are many reasons that a child might need a phone. And yes I know countless generations did ok without one, but we have the technology now! I grew up without seatbelts and car seats and so many things that no one would consider doing without.

@Whinge actually yes. I believe people should be given opportunities to correct their mistakes and learn from it.

@CurlewKate there are parts of where I live (South London) where I definitely wouldn't want young teens walking through when it's getting dark (which in January is as early as 4pm).

If you are so paranoid that you need to track your child, why not add an apple tag thing to the child's pocket or bag?

Tracking without any risk of problems

Take it you don't live in Scotland? It's dark here before 4pm at the moment.

Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that teenagers now are so reliant on their phones. Don't parents ever teach their child what to do in case of an emergency? What would they do if their phone got lost/stolen/broken/ran out of charge?

I've taught my DD from a very young age to know my number of by heart, so she can call me from a friend's phone. When she was at school she always had enough emergency cash at the bottom of her bag to pay for the bus home if there was a problem with her phone. She knew to keep her money and phone separate, so if she lost one, she should still have the other. She knew to go to a neighbour if there was a problem at home. Surely these are the things that parents teach their children? We've become so reliant on technology that many kids don't know what to do if they are suddenly cut adrift from their phone.

I don't think putting a child at risk by taking away her ability to call for help is an proportionate consequence.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if - say - an insurance company sued a school / headteacher because they claimed the schools confiscating of a kid's phone was what meant that the house burnt to the ground instead of being put out by the fire brigade with £20k of damage.

One could also come up with other scenarios such as the kid thinking she's being followed but not having her phone with her, and the potential difference in outcomes.