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 do you mean by "our schools" I might not have a good idea of what is going on in your particular school but I have a good idea of what is likely to alienate parents in general and make them less helpful in enforcing school rules.

Ours also does it. The form teacher sorts it at registration so they're dealing with 30 kids apiece. The feedback from staff has been very positive, as well as the feedback from parents.

You've pretty much proved my point.
Thank you.

Perhaps "for safety" kids could have a cheap Doro phone to keep in their bag instead of a smart phone. No SM/internet etc. just a phone that makes phone calls.

Proved your point about what?

@Hateam are you a parent?

But who do they collect them off at the end of the day because schools don't have form time then? The 30 children from one form wouldn't all be together in the same lesson at the end of the day either

Our school does have form time at the end of the day, and phones are retrieved then.

About parents having very little idea about what things are like on our schools.

That isn't the norm in most schools though.

No.
I'm a teacher. I'm actually primary where there are very few problems. However I speak a lot to secondary teachers. There are exasperated at the problems phones are causing in terms of disruption and bullying and stunned at the number of parents who will not entertain any thought that their child as done wrong.

In some cases children have had phones confiscated for filming bullying. The evidence is there on the phone (yes some children are that stupid) the parent then calls the police to accuse the teacher of stealing their child's phone.

Interesting, locally all the schools I know of have afternoon registration/form time as well as morning. And I've seen a few people on the phones in schools threads in similar situations.

At any rate, it's what happens at our place, and seems to be working well.

Every school I know (across multiple local authorities) that has afternoon form time has it straight after lunch then lessons so at the end of the day they are all in lesson time not together in form.

Interesting that there isn't a single standard approach. I wonder if as more schools address the issue of phones in school, more schools may shift to an end of day model.

We all know secondary school teachers. That doesn't make you an expert on teenagers and certainly not on parenting a teenager. I'm not suggesting there aren't problems with phones but they need to be addressed in a way that doesn't involve making the children unable to contact their parents on their way to or from school. It would be incredibly stressful for most parents if their children had no way of contacting them should there be issues with transport or other problems on their way home from school. Banning phones rather than coming up with another solution would massively alienate most parents.

Then, I'm going to say it again, if the children followed the rules, schools would have to have blanket bans and children wouldn't have their phones confiscated.

Here's the perfect solution. If a child has their phone out when they shouldn't it's confiscated until a parent collects it. If being without a phone is such a problem on terms
of safety, don't get your phone out on class.

There I solved it. It just needs the children to pack a small amount of responsibility and for parents to ask their children to take a small amount of responsibility.

Did you read the OP? What you are suggesting is exactly I want to happen and what I would like the rule to be.

Yes, that would be fine.

Our school does have form time at the end of the day, and phones are retrieved then.

I don't know of any school that does this, and I've worked in a lot! In most schools, the register done in their first lesson after lunch counts as the afternoon school attendance register.

But that won't happen because too many kids think it's their god given right to break the rules and too many parents back them.up.

So what now?

If it wouldn't work be because "too many kids think it is their god given right to break the rules" why would a blanket ban be better?

That's great and I'm not questioning whether what you're saying is true.

But I know at least five or six secondary schools locally to where I live that do form time at the end of the day rather than after lunch. I'm now aware of one nearby school that does a tutor group/registration lesson immediately after lunch for 15 minutes and (was inspired by the thread to do some checking.)

I zero reason to lie about this. I'm not disputing others' statements so not sure why all this incredulity about mine. This is how the system works at my child's school, and it appears to work well from an overall pastoral point of view as well as from the practicality of the phones question.

No phones on school, no phones in class.

The point I'm making is no matter what schools do, they will.be in the wrong.

I agree with you OP. It's not reasonable, my 11 yo will be going 3 miles on a bus that doesn't take cash from September. He has a physical bus pass but it can't be loaded with a ticket so I will need to buy credit for his bus account in advance and then transfer to his account which he accesses on a phone app. It's frustrating and ridiculous but it means he couldn't manage with those school rules. I totally agree on collecting them in (which is what his primary does) or having a really strict policy on not allowing phones out (his new school approach) but banning them completely is sadly not reasonable given the reliance on them. My son has already been warned that he needs to be super careful not having his phone out as if its confiscated he won't be able to get home or let us know he needs picking up so I'm hoping he'll be really sensible.