Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be annoyed by total phone ban

710 replies

TeleGardenGnome · 09/05/2024 07:25

My child's school which is a busy city location has a total phone ban. So you aren't allowed to take any type of phone to school at all even if it stays hidden in a bag and is on silent and never used. They do bag searches and use metal detectors to find students breaking the rules.

If your child's phone is found they get a detention and you can only get it back by visiting the school in person.

So yesterday my child's phone was found in a bag search and removed. There were awful transport issues and it took them several hours to get home. In the meanwhile we had no way to contact each other.

I can't get the phone back due to work and my husband being away for work. It just stresses me out that he won't be able to get in touch if there's a problem. Expressing my feelings here as there is no point complaining to the school. They don't listen to parental feedback.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
12
useruserna · 09/05/2024 13:31

Sorry, haven't read the full thread - but could you ask for "dumb" phones to be allowed? ie ones that only can do calls and text and then are turned off & put away in school hours. It seems a reasonable compromise.

CrispieCake · 09/05/2024 13:31

SabreIsMyFave · 09/05/2024 13:21

Good grief. How did children EVER cope without their own mobile phone?!!!

And how did the PARENTS cope without their children having their own mobile phone?

Utterly batshit! Get a grip @TeleGardenGnome

And as pps have said, surely there is a closer school than one that they have to get to via tube trains. Why does he not get a bus? How far away is this school (in miles?) If this happens a lot, why do you not look for a school closer to home?

Children in London and other cities often travel across the city to school and have commutes of up to 90 minutes involving several trains/tube/buses. It's really not uncommon.

ILoveYouItsRuiningMyLife · 09/05/2024 13:33

I live in a small town up north.

it is BAFFLING to me that there are 11 year olds commuting all over London by themselves.

Shines a light on how wrapped in cotton wool the kids in my town are 🤯

GiacomettisCornetto · 09/05/2024 13:34

VestibuleVirgin · 09/05/2024 07:44

Some of us lived in a pre-mobile phone world. We survived

Show quote history

Yes we did. But is was a pre-mobile phone world we were living in.

Grammarnut · 09/05/2024 13:34

MoreDangerousThanAWomanScorned · 09/05/2024 11:17

Again, as lots of people have explained, the world is different in lots of ways, in part because there is a widespread expectation that people will carry their own phones. My secondary school had payphones to call home, so it wasn't the case that there was no way of contacting a parent.

I remember once my bus home - the only bus, because I lived in a small village - just didn't turn up. I waited, alone as I was the only person from my secondary school who lived in my village, for a while and then went to the office of the bus station. I used their phone to ring home and when no one answered because mum wasn't yet home from work they paid for a taxi to take me home! All of that - a manned office in the bus station that allowed people to use its phone, a bus company that was so easily contactable and saw a stranded 12 year old as its responsibility - sounds like fiction now. It was 1998.

Show quote history

My parents had no phone, so no way of contacting them. The world has changed in ways that are detrimental to most of us - to the profit of a few. It's sad we have walked into this, but I don't know a way of walking out again.

Allfur · 09/05/2024 13:34

CrispieCake · 09/05/2024 13:31

Children in London and other cities often travel across the city to school and have commutes of up to 90 minutes involving several trains/tube/buses. It's really not uncommon.

Show quote history

Poor kids, what a childhood

GoodHeavens99 · 09/05/2024 13:36

useruserna · 09/05/2024 13:31

Sorry, haven't read the full thread - but could you ask for "dumb" phones to be allowed? ie ones that only can do calls and text and then are turned off & put away in school hours. It seems a reasonable compromise.

There's a grammar school near me and that's actually their phone policy now.

SluggyMuggy · 09/05/2024 13:36

TeleGardenGnome · 09/05/2024 13:13

I am afraid this is not very rare in London at all and I don't wish to encourage my child to approach strangers.

Show quote history

When I was young we were taught to resolve situations by asking strangers for help. I was told to approach a woman with her own children or a member of station staff.
If you won't do that, there is really nothing you can do except check local travel delays.

Mama1980 · 09/05/2024 13:36

My teen son does not have a phone, and never has. Initially it was my choice now it's his. He travels all over London, the one time he got into serious difficulties he went into a shop and asked for help - which was forthcoming.

Allfur · 09/05/2024 13:38

TeleGardenGnome · 09/05/2024 13:25

My child doesn't want to change their school. It is not a trivial thing to change secondary school. Look at all the threads where a child changes school and gets assigned to bottom sets because the others are full. It's difficult potentially both socially and academically. Sometimes problems don't have easy solutions. Going to investigate android tags.

Show quote history

Well I guess they won't make the same mistake again, lesson learnt and all that

Peppermintytea · 09/05/2024 13:38

Allfur · 09/05/2024 13:34

Poor kids, what a childhood

Show quote history

I don't live in London but I've been there a few times at school run time and the kids always seem perfectly happy and confident, enjoying hanging out with their friends on the school run, listening to music, watching or making silly tiktoks, quizzing each other for tests etc. I'm a country bumpkin and the tube terrifies me but these kids are able to navigate our whole capital city and be independent - lucky kids, what a great start in life.

thing47 · 09/05/2024 13:39

@TeleGardenGnome presumably the school make exceptions for DCs who use a smartphone for medical reasons.

Does your DC know anyone who is in that position who could make a call in an emergency?

potato57 · 09/05/2024 13:40

alphabetzoo · 09/05/2024 07:46

School need to invest in lock boxes for each class/ pupil and all phones are checked in when they arrive and checked out when they leave. Damn right these children don't need a phone during the day but then do for school travel

Someone is going to start a business doing that at the nearest shop to schools and make a fortune.

reenon · 09/05/2024 13:41

My DD's secondary is bringing in the Yondr pouches. Parents have to pay for them, many parents have offered to buy an extra one for those families who can't afford them.

Original poster
TeleGardenGnome · 09/05/2024 13:42

potato57 · 09/05/2024 13:40

Someone is going to start a business doing that at the nearest shop to schools and make a fortune.

Show quote history

I did think last night it would be a good business idea.

OP posts:
ILoveYouItsRuiningMyLife · 09/05/2024 13:42

reenon · 09/05/2024 13:41

My DD's secondary is bringing in the Yondr pouches. Parents have to pay for them, many parents have offered to buy an extra one for those families who can't afford them.

Can afford a smart phone for their child though

SluggyMuggy · 09/05/2024 13:43

Grammarnut · 09/05/2024 13:34

My parents had no phone, so no way of contacting them. The world has changed in ways that are detrimental to most of us - to the profit of a few. It's sad we have walked into this, but I don't know a way of walking out again.

Show quote history

My parents had no phone either, we were pretty poor. My childhood was full of bus delays and just assuming the other person had been delayed and would turn up eventually.
I once waited outside a closed school as a 7 year old alone for half an hour as my mum had been delayed. School simply locked up.
I think it is hard to explain to younger people how much phones have changed life. They just assume we could all phone from payphones when we often could not. We just worked around it.

totk · 09/05/2024 13:45

YANBU. I went to a school around an hour's bus drive away. A bunch of us lived in a pretty rural hilly area of villages. One day it was snowing and the bus couldn't get any further towards the villages, so the driver kicked us all out in the snow.

Even the closest village would have been a half hour walk in heavy snow up a steep hill so that was a no-go. Only one girl had a phone (most of us would have been around in early years of high school and, at the time, only the older kids tended to have phones in my area) and we all used hers to phone our parents. God knows what we'd have done otherwise.

reenon · 09/05/2024 13:46

ILoveYouItsRuiningMyLife · 09/05/2024 13:42

Can afford a smart phone for their child though

Show quote history

Yes but some of these families could have old hand me down smartphones with a cheap SIM...? That's what my daughter has (only because she is massively careless and doesn't look after things properly) I don't know the circumstances of other parents' finances.

I have offered to pay for an extra one as I think they are a brilliant idea.

lanthanum · 09/05/2024 13:46

DD's school used to have a total ban in school, but the option of handing them in on arrival for those coming from further away.

I wonder if there's a market opportunity for someone near the school to offer a phone storage facility? Might be hard to organise so that they can collect them quickly, though.

I agree that non-smart phones might provide a useful compromise. DD actually used a non-smart phone until 13 - she didn't feel the need for a smart phone because they weren't allowed in school and she had a computer at home - she only used the phone for texts.

shenandoahvalley · 09/05/2024 13:46

I'm extremely anti-social media.

I'm not at all anti-mobile phones.

It's not reasonable in this day and age for schools to instigate a complete mobile phone ban after primary school. Most families have two working parents, most kids aren't dropped off and collected by a parent/caregiver.

My kids' school requires all kids up to aged 14 (end of middle school, we're not in the UK) to turn in all phones and watches upon entering the school. They're handed back at the end of the day. Each student has a box with his/her name on. Some kids have a phone and a watch. There has never been a problem with this.

High school kids are free to come and go from school as their schedule dictates, so they keep theirs. However, every few weeks even they have "cellphone-free days" on campus and have to hand them in at reception. Faculty and staff report that the playground is busiest on those days, with studnets talking to each other, playing basketball, more laughing and interaction. Otherwise breaktimes are quiet and students barely interact.

strangewomenlyinginponds · 09/05/2024 13:47

Ok, I see that the school doesn't let them hand their phones in, as so many schools do.

Well, if you can't go along with their rule then your only option is to change schools I'm afraid.

Lancasterel · 09/05/2024 13:48

A few years ago I’d have had no problem with this, but with my DS now approaching Y7 the idea of him walking to/from school without a phone would not make me happy! Especially for the first few weeks when it’s all new. And we’re talking walking a mile to get to school, not crossing London!

elizabethdraper · 09/05/2024 13:48

Our school has a phone jail
all phone get headed up every morning and returned at the end of the day

SluggyMuggy · 09/05/2024 13:49

Mama1980 · 09/05/2024 13:36

My teen son does not have a phone, and never has. Initially it was my choice now it's his. He travels all over London, the one time he got into serious difficulties he went into a shop and asked for help - which was forthcoming.

Good for him. This is life skills. What do you do if there is no family or friends to help.
I was taught by the way as a child to ask for help from a woman with children first or someone official. The priority went -
someone official such as police, bus driver
woman with children
woman alone
woman and man with children
man with children
man

As we become an adult, if we live anything but a very safe live, we all find ourselves in positions where we have to ask strangers for help. It is a good skill to learn.