To wonder what the ban on smartphones across 17 schools in South London will acheive.

[ThatMother2024]

The Guardian reports that 17 schools are uniting to ban smartphones. I have no idea what this is expected to acheive, what the evidence base is and whether kids will just devise some easy workaround.

I do . Seen it with my own eyes. School has better things to do than produce stats or data, too busy trying to teach. There’s a body position which you know means a pupil is on their phone at their desk, usually right hand down low trying to hide the phone under the desk. I used to play chicken with pupils walking down the corridor on their phones, but I always lost so I gave up. Nightmare.
My nephews school in North London has a phone ban, my sister is fully in favour.

My son needed a phone in year 5, as he had to walk home on his own and be ablento contact me or his sister (covid). So we got him a Nokia brick, there was no way he was getting a smartphone. I mean all of the social media platforms are at lest age 13 or above now so why would a kid need a smartphone before then?

Check out this podcast on this topic

open.spotify.com/episode/36v2KWpyUBK1MYkv3YqjF6?si=jjb3jUJKQFmdHrQ3DsnFaA

Of course they do this!

I work in secondary as well. Some parents have no idea about what goes on.
Not all students of course but a majority would given the chance.

The Nokia kids (and the no phone at all one) in my kids primary school were left out. So much socialising and plans were done on WhatsApp - in part I think as these kids grew up socialising solely online during the pandemic. And my 2 definitely need smartphones now as they use the route planner/timetable apps for transport, have payment enabled for emergencies and I like to track their whereabouts using find-my (though I know that can be done with an AirTag).

Fact is life is so reliant on smartphones now that it's hard to learn how to function in a grown up world without one.

Children don’t need smartphones

Fact is life is so reliant on smartphones now that it's hard to learn how to function in a grown up world without one.

Well my only 11yo will just have to learn how to function without one until he’s old enough to be part of the grown up world…and he’ll have Snake on his phone to keep him occupied whilst the other 11yo pretend to be grown ups on their smartphones 🤷‍♀️

Why are primary age using WhatsApp - they are below the legal age.

@Parker231 but unfortunately some do because that's how they pay for their transport home - electronic tickets.
Perhaps schools and bus companies need to sit down and talk to each other.
In London children have Oyster Zip cards which is a physical plastic card. Why can't other bus companies do that?

Adolescents need to learn how to become adults and part of that is using all of the tech that the world provides, in an age appropriate way. Completely banning young people from smartphones altogether is unrealistic and counterproductive. They need to learn and part of learning is failing to get it right.
Tighter regulation on apps and internet access yes, better rules around access to them during school hours (in schools that don't already do this) yes; make it illegal to have them? No. That's ridiculous.

DS school did this some years ago for a year or so. Kids with a long journey to school could leave phones at reception. About 200. Bloody chaos for all concerned. Some hid them in bushes at the edge of the grounds leading to dubious types hanging about to steal them and generally intimidate. DS left his with his grandparents who lived a couple of doors away and pretty soon about 20 other kids did this too. Other neighbours apparently wanted to charge to look after phones! And of course the worst offenders just carried on taking them into school. Oh and burner phones. Anyway it was unpolicable, so it was dropped. I mean it was a terrible school, but no way NO WAY were those kids going to be without a phone.

Because that's the way they all communicated with each other.

All parents knew about the age limit but all of the kids wanted to chat in groups like in Teams (per pandemic) but on their own devices.

It will achieve what all performative authoritarianism achieves -sneaky, disengaged kids who think the adults around them are against them and not to be trusted.

Why didn't they just leave them at reception?! Were they leaving school premises during the school day to get them from the bushes/neighbours/grandparents?! Are they allowed to leave the school midway through the day?

This all sounds like dreadful standards of discipline generally.

There is a an argument that children need phones and there may well be occasions they do so I propose issuing old style dumb phones with no data just for calls.

They do not need to be able take photographs and view video in school..

This is great news. I am a member of the WhatsApp group smartphone free childhood and it makes me hopeful that there will be greater regulation by the time my children go into secondary.

How is my kid going to access the train app when there are delays or the connection doesn't arrive? How are they going to plan an alternative route when eg: someone jumps on the line (as sadly they did a few weeks ago)? My child being tech-enabled made our choice of school possible.

When I was still teaching in Melbourne a few years ago we had no end of trouble making phone bans work, but when it became law the problem vanished as all the students could blame the government!!

Of course some lessons still need occasional phones but their need had to appear in the online lesson plan.

Students left their phones in their lockers, which were not vandalised as was the case in every London school I taught in - who promptly abandoned lockers.

Our senior like many others have banned the use of phones on school property. They have seen a mass take up of more lunchtime clubs and a large amount of pupils now bringing in card games etc and socialising during breaks. Sounds overwhelmingly positive to me, can’t actually really see any negatives.
They can have them in bags but switched off. If they are seen in use it will be confiscated for the week. Need it to get home? Don’t be caught using it during the day. They can apparently go to reception and ask to make calls to parents if needed but none of my 3dc have ever needed to do that.
They have all afternoon and evening to be on their phones if the parents allow it.

They do. All this and worse - there’s probably lots of data but..ask any teacher.

@TheChosenTwo that sounds sensible to me.
That's how schools need to do it.
It should be parents choice if their children have phones. Switched off and out of sight is fine.
If schools can manage to send kids to isolation for having the wrong colour socks or a haircut that's deemed inappropriate then they should be able to confiscate a phone.

Confiscated phones should be returned at the end of the day. So they can still be used for getting home. If that is not sufficient punishment then an additional punishment in line with school rule breaking policy should be added (detention, 'Warning', de-merits or whatever).

Parents choice if their DC’s have a phone but a schools choice if phones are allowed on school premises.

I would like to see smartphones banned for under 18 - like we do for smoking and alcohol. They are hugely problematic to developing minds and we haven't seen the full impact yet. "Feature' (dumb ) phones to make a call with, no problem, but there is far too much unfettered access to lord knows what with smartphones.

@astonssandboxisalittertray the day you describe for your teens sounds like private or certainly selective school with lots extra sports etc.
The reality of 90% teens at state schools is prob very different. Mine leave house at 8.20 and are home by 3.20 most days . Bed at 10.30
So 7 hours to fill. Mine do loads sport but high % don't