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.

DS' school had the policy of 'off and away'. If they were seen then they were confiscated and the parent had to go and get it back. But it meant they could be kept in bags for the route home.

I thought that was sensible. Not sure about a total ban for all of the reasons mentioned.

I'm guessing here that they've tried allowing them switched off in bags etc and this hasn't worked.
I agree with the PP who said keep phoning the school and keep getting your child to phone you.

The problem is that off in the bags turns into pupils sat in loos on their phones. This can't be policed (quite rightly) but it creates an issue for the staff. I speak from experience of our school.

Handing them into a class box in the office on arrival would seem a sensible compromise. We also shouldn't underestimate the issues that pupils using phones at school creates for teachers.

The government is pushing a total ban on phones in schools. They can be a behaviour and safeguarding nightmare. For every so many children that keep their phone switched off there will be 1 who doesn’t and that will likely be a problem one.

School budgets are stripped back to ridiculous levels. Large schools don’t have the staffing or time to manage phone collections and handing them back in.

The government needs to step in and fund Yondr pouches if it wants total ban as the reality for many children is that to keep them safe to and from school they need a phone.

Ours has over a thousand students so not small they still collect and return daily

Ds2 primary is the same thousand students collect and return daily

I didnt need a phone for school because it was within walking distance ds1 high school isn't really in walking distance and there have been a few times he has vanished due to transport mess ups we have muddled through but he has had half the street get into cars and drive off looking for him at one point taking a phone would have been easier

I don’t understand how your school can just ban phones. It’s clearly a safety issue. Maybe band up with other parents to get it changed

It's awful.

I'm glad phones are not allowed to be used in school but they should be allowed in a bag switched off.

After school time is not school time and parents need to check where their kids are.

this is tricky.

I actually understand the thinking behind a total ban - my 12 year old spends far too much time on his phone playing games/ chatting on school bus both there and home - I hate it but every other child has their nose in a phone as well.

I would actually welcome an initiative that bnned phones for kids this age in any form!

It's tricky though in the current day and age with bus passes etc - I also wonder what happens if they need to go on to sport or something like that.

Agree.

We were pre mobiles.

But we also had phone boxes.

We also always went to a school near home. Nowadays pupils are often buses or provided bus/train passes because there's no local catchment school and public transport isn't as reliable now as it was back then.

Our school also had dedicated school buses which you just paid for (in cash!) or brought a weekly ticket.

My ds had a taxi to school (attended on an ehcp and transported). Just a taxi driver taking him and another lad to school and ds home. I wouldn't have wanted him travelling alone in a taxi unable to contact anyone.

Our secondary uses locked pouches (yondr). Phone goes into the pouch in the morning and is unlocked by school at the end of the day. Much better than a total ban as the phone is available for travel.

Something like the yondr pouches a PP mentioned seem good. They wouldn't take long to unlock at end of day and school could get parents to cover the costs. Maybe you could take some ideas to the governing body of the school or P&C if you have those in UK schools.

Nowhere have I said it should be banned, fgs.
I pointed out, in response to the OP being 'out of contact' that generations survived without such contact
And given the influence of sm in children murdering children, and tje othrr assosciated dangers, it ain't a that

I wish our school was more strict with phones. I was watching bbc breakfast yesterday and they had a whole segment about online safety. Some schools make kids put them into a locker and collect at end of the day and I’ve heard some have magnetic pouches they lock their phone in which then gets unlocked at end of school day.

My DDs school don’t allow phones to be used during school day but they all still do it. They just go to the toilets or hide it in their bag. If they are sick the school tells them to use their own phone to call us.

I don’t think phone off and out of site works it needs to be locked away by to school or banned all together .

People always say "well we didn't have phones and all day and we got home fine" but they were phone boxes. You could stop somebody and asked to use the phone you could go to shop asked to use the phone or sorts of things you could do any of those things really now.
I had a night where I’d travelled to get to a concert and my phone broke. I had to call into hotels en route and ask could I use their phone. Everyone let me but you could see them wondering was it a scam or something!!! Definitely could have done with a phone box!!!

That will end very quickly when one goes missing.

Why can't children just remember their parents phone numbers?

Phones have no place in a school environment.

It is a completely lazy arguement. I am also from a time well before mobile phones.
Its a bit like saying ‘well we all put babies to sleep on their fronts and they were perfectly fine’
or
Well we never had seatbelts in the back and all my kids grew up without a scratch
Good for you but many many did come to harm. A mobile for travel is a safety net - it solves a lot of problems if there are issues on the journey.
Life was simpler and smaller with generally ‘less’ all round years ago. People stayed more local, walked to secondary school in many cases. If they had further to go then you always had change for a phone box if there was a problem. People were generally less suspicious and community was far more valued.
It was a very different time

Phones cause nothing but disruption in schools and clubs. The bullying done by them is so detrimental to the children.

It's a good thing they are banned.

We never had phones and walked to school or got public transport without issues.

If there was a problem then 🤷‍♀️ if they have your number written down, I'm sure the bus driver would let them use their phone to notify you.

I think the analogy to car seats is disingenuous - car seats save lives , it's much less clear cut with mobile phones and teenagers - deaths are linked to their use , they enable things that used to be public - bullying - to hide -lots of bad things

There is a reason they have been banned. And it's a good thing in imo.

I always had money for a phone box though- my parents made sure. There isn’t one on most streets now, as there was then.

What good is remembering the phone number if you have no phone to call on if there is an issue?
Bizarre.

“Phones off and in bags” doesn’t work. For one, they’re not off (they’re on silent) and for two, the kids check them in the toilets. Then schools have the knock-on problem of kids asking to go to the toilet in lessons (to check their phones), so they ban in-lesson toilet visits, so parents complain about that….

The only way is for schools to take them in and return at the end of the day (not always practical/creates secure storage issues), or for them to be in the lockable pouches. I think the pouches are the best bet, form tutors could supervise locking them at the start of the day and they could be unlocked at the end of their last lesson.

I can remember our school minibus breaking down. The teacher managed to ring the AA... but that was it. They tried the school, but no one answered.

Our parents had no idea why we hadn't come home. They didn't know it was a school problem, or a public bus problem, or something had happened...

They would have loved us to have our own mobiles that day!

My DD only takes hers to school if she's staying late... but is a 5 minute walk.

Phones solve problems as well as creating them and banning phones also creates problems

We had no phone in the house so there was no one to phone. Imagine!!