To be annoyed by total phone ban

[TeleGardenGnome]

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.

What borough is this in? You can get list of payphones in each borough and some mainline stations like Victoria (last time I checked anyway still have payphones).

If you aren't going to change school policy or change school then maybe look at different solutions like the airtags or if there actually is a local shop you could pay that he could use the phone. What about a friend who lives closer to the school? I just think someone must have had an ingenious workaround if there are that many kids. Smartwatch? Tablet?

Think it ridiculous, and I see hundreds of kids travelling daily on the tube to and from school, they've all got a phone!

@namemane
"As a pupil I learnt how to use a calculator - the world didn’t fall apart, we didn’t go down a wormhole writing boobies." 😂😂😂

YANBU but rather than fighting the ban directly, start campaigning to insist that the school must install payphones that students can use to call home about transport arrangements because they simply don't exist around the streets any more and if they expect their students to live as if it's the 1980s again they need to replace the facilities that used to exist back then. That's a totally reasonable mitigation for the immense inconvenience that they are causing to hundreds of families with their ban - but critically, it will cost them money to implement. I suspect that if the campaign gets enough support to be taken seriously, the school will realise that simply allowing students to have their phones in the bags but completely switched off (not just on silent/stand-by)they can save themselves ££££. Suddenly the rules will be changed to be less draconian.

My daughter doesn’t have a phone, she has SEN’s and refuses to carry one (not ideal), so if she’s late home or there a incident at school I have to rely on school or the taxi company calling me which is probably what would have been done before we had mobile phones.

I do think kids should be allowed phones as long as they are handed in at registration in the morning and collected at the end of the day. Especially those who have to walk home (a fair distance).

eh??! there's literally none round here, they were taken down years ago

Can't they just use the phone at reception

Another thing I’m responsible to the ‘we managed’ comments: I want better for my kids. I was in risky situations and I was just lucky at times. I went missing, I got scared and all sorts. I didn’t become any better for those experiences. I think it’s fine to aim a little higher for my kids. Add in the fact the area is different from when I was young. There were no early morning drug zombies at the station, less of the muffin for shits and giggles games. Plus we tended to travel in packs of kids more.

Schools should not be responsible for missing phones, it's a decision parents make letting them have phones in school.

Buy a pager if you need to know where they are.

The data is in this book
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/456971/the-anxious-generation-by-haidt-jonathan/9780241647660
And discussed here
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jonathan-haidt-on-how-to-solve-the-teen-mental-health-crisis/id1460030305?i=1000652167670

I home educate for these types of reasons

schools don’t have choice nowadays…

You've witnessed them in a brief window of their 3 hour round commute which they fit around a full school day. It's hardly the full picture. It's possible to learn how to navigate cities without 3 hours travel per day.

They’ve removed all the local pay phones where I live. I wouldn’t know where I could make a call tbh. I’d be really unimpressed if my kids schools banned phones.

Not sure calculators have ever helped cause suicide

I saw a pay phone that was still a pay phone for the first time in about 10 years last week. It was in a village that is a complete phone and internet black spot.

Even short journeys can be problematic. We were a 15 minute walk from school and 15 years ago my sister was being stalked by another pupil. One day he followed her home. She had a brick phone on her and she was able to call me to meet her and then the police. As the 999 call came from her number that has a flag on it due to her risk they responded very quickly. I wouldn't trust the school to give her dispensation as they were in denial that the boy was doing any wrong. She had only recently been given a phone and my parents were very relieved that she had it that day

I will do my best to help any one that needs it and often offer if I see someone in distress but I have one rule and that is I absolutely do not let anyone use my phone. There are so many scams that start by having access to your phone. So not a chance will I be handing my phone over to a child to use also I don't personally answer my phone if it is an number I don't recognise and my partner is the same. A big scam on WhatsApp is the "hi mum" scam where a scammer claims to be your child and without their phone I need you to message me through this number now etc.

An important aspect of adolescent life is learning to navigate and take decisions for yourself. And for parents of adolescents to mange their own anxiety.

As someone who comes into contact with children regularly and their bloody phones, I think a phone ban is unfortunately necessary. If phones had been left in bags and on silent, then a total ban wouldn’t be necessary.

I don’t think parents really understand how bloody distracting and disruptive phones are. Phone’s have brought bullying to a whole new level.

I survived my school years without a phone. I was either at school, or on the way to and from school or at a activity/ friends that was prearranged.

And how did we cope before automatic washing machines, electric cars and all sorts of other modern inventions. The world has evolved. There are no public phone boxes or very few and multiple transport strikes. Children need to be safe. Your comment is rude and condescending.

When DS was at school we didn't have mobile phones and nobody died. I worked full time and arranged to call him on the house phone when he got home. If he wasn't home I'd ring the school.
I think the only thing that has changed is that nobody can cope without being glued to a phone. I have a mobile and a computer and they are very useful but if it all disappeared tomorrow I wouldn't care.
I'd be more concerned about my child being bullied or groomed via their phone or committing suicide because someone took nude photos of them and passed them around.

I'm pretty sure kids don't learn at school how to use mobile phones to take photos!

It's all such a pain. Schools don't want to be old-fashioned and anti-tech, but phones cause such a lot of (sometimes very serious) problems in school. On balance I think putting them in lockers on arrival is the best idea, but even that is far from foolproof. Some kids will just claim not to have brought a phone in. Others will bring an old phone and just hand that one over to be locked up, while their proper one is still in their bag.

Edit: quoted wrong post and can't seem to change it!

Not if their train is cancelled half way home
Or their bike has a puncture
Or they are taken I'll on the way home....

Yes I grew up without a mobile.
But now there's the choice I'm very grateful that my dd could phone me when a man in the park was making her feel uncomfortable, or when all the trains are cancelled because of a suicide on the tracks, or whatever.
When they're out of school, they're out of school, and then it's MY rules, and I'd be telling the school that.

Do people not read the full thread? A brick/dumb phone, a pager or an air tag won't be any use for a child that needs to access an online bus/train ticket.

Phones are technically banned in dds school, but they don't check their bags and have always turned a blind eye to them as long as they are kept out of sight/sound. However recently there have been a few incidences were students have filmed others (innocent group stuff nothing creepy) and have posted them on SM so the school have had to double down. If you bring in your phone you hand it over at assembly and collect it after school. Must be a right nuisance for the teacher assigned to collecting them and being responsible for keeping them safe (some of the would cost £££££ to replace) but i am sure parents will hold the school responsible for anything is posted during school hours. Schools really are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Yes we managed without a lot of modern technology. We also recognised that when mobile phones became the norm they were flipping handy for being able to help a child if they need it during their commute to and from school, especially if it was a long journey or with multiple legs, like the OP's son's is.

and my mum wouldn't have had kittens when I went to an after school sporting event and it didn't occur to me to find a phone box to ring and tell her I would be late home