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.

Smartphone free childhood is really worth checking out in this topic, they’ve made some really great strides recently
https://smartphonefreechildhood.co.uk/

You only have to work in a school to know that they have to deal with this sort of thing all the time. I think all teachers would support a ban.

They have this rule but it’s meaningless in practice. Kids are using phones constantly during the school days and it’s impossible for teachers to police.

Nobody suggested schools should control what happens with phones at homes. This proposal is about banning phone use in school during the school day.

@Needmorelego

Because unless the phones are totally removed or threatened and followed up with confiscated on sight, it's impossible to police.
As soon as they are told to put them away, they wait for the teacher to do something else and they are out again.
School staff have enough to do without being phone monitor.
An outright legal ban in our education system is what's needed in law. Zero phones in class.
By all means use them in the way in and out but zero tolerance in class.

Have you checked your children's phones? You might be surprised. Check the photos and check what time messages are sent on all social media.

Even really well behaved kids are prolific phone users, believe me. It's not a question of well behaved and busy. It's addiction.

There is no valid reason to have a smartphone at school

None at all? Type 1 diabetics use them to help manage their condition. That's a valid reason.

This is like saying if children can't drink alcohol, we should ban adults too.

Don't worry, they misspelt focused and used less instead of fewer 😉

Undoubtedly some kids are more sucked into this than others. And I know some parents who possibly have superior parenting skills (or kids far less invested) may not see a problem, but I'm curious if anyone else would be relieved if schools encouraged families to sign up to just never getting the blasted things?

I don’t think it’s the schools responsibility to contract with parents what happens in their homes. It’s an abdication of responsibility on the parents part and massive overreach by schools. I’m surprised how much power parents want to hand over to school.

As far as phone use goes, my DDs phone is blocked between 9.00 and 3.30, she can use it on the way to and from school but not during school hours. If there comes a point when she needs a particular feature or app during school hours I can open just that app. I can also unblock the phone remotely if need be.

There are lots of different parental control programmes out there, there is no need for kids to have unfettered access to phones at school but I suspect parents would rather the school fought with their kids than parents set clear boundaries themselves.

They banned in schools anyway or at least the ones in my area. Phones are handed in at the beginning of the day. Very Good policy. The amount of bullying using phones is awful. So glad I grow up before smart phones. My niece and nephew are at the smartphone secondary age and tbh they now not as interested in phones due to a bullying situation

I think a ban in schools is a good idea. My worries would be if I had children who need the apps for commuting or especially if I had a child who was using a medical device that matched to their phone. There would be work arounds and alternative plans can be made but this is one function of smart tech that is truly helpful. I'd have liked a period tracker as a teen although otherwise I didn't need a phone beyond basic calls and texts!

My other worry is that actually, the things we are trying to avoid are all pervasive. I also went to school in the noughties. Phones weren't as smart as they are now but everyone used their laptop or pc for social media. We used msn in lieu of WhatsApp and people had MP3s. MSN and social media sites still caused mayhem. We knew which proxy sites would get us onto our Facebook profiles on school computers. People texted on the way home and then hopped online. These technologies still exist, they'll just be rediscovered and evolve into their next form - including being compatible with wireless headphones. I would support a ban on smart tech / social media for u16s though. As long as we accept that some people will always try to find ways round it and actually put measures in place to tackle it.

Can we also take laptops out of classrooms? A pp mentioned kids using them for youtube etc. I remember someone using one to game during a suprisingly intimate uni class and somehow not getting detected. For the majority of children who don't have any need to type in lieu of write, why are these needed? Would classrooms be better reverting back to pen and paper?

God i wish the'd ban them everywhere!

Clearly too much time on my phone.

You don’t need a gold plated 5* study for everything in life. This is common sense.

My worries would be if I had children who need the apps for commuting or especially if I had a child who was using a medical device that matched to their phone. There would be work arounds and alternative plans can be made but this is one function of smart tech that is truly helpful

there is no ‘work around’. The technology works. To not allow a child to use the technology would amount to disability discrimination. For this reason alone smartphones cannot be blanket banned in education.

I have a sim card called Parent Shield. I can auto cut her phone off during school hours. They can only make emergency calls or call parents from it. Internet, texts, and calls are all blocked. It's more a parents job to manage this.

Fewer spelling mistakes

Many things are supposedly “impossible to police”, and yet we choose to make the rule against them anyway.

Because it’s the right thing to do.

Doing the right thing is often difficult, and that’s no excuse for not trying.

I’ve gone for a halfway house. I am ‘lending’ DD1 my old iPhone. The one with a cracked screen and rubbish battery.

I went to the Apple Store and they helped me set it all up so that I control her phone. I control when it can be used, what apps she can download, etc. And all possible parental filters are applied. Needless to say, it’s very limited and impossible to use in school time.

The data allowance is also very small, so it will only take one time of running out before she works out that accessing internet has a cost.

It’s also still ‘my’ phone, and the rule is that I can look at anything on it, at any time, and if I find something wrong - the phone privileges are lost.

It’s a good compromise. I can give her much more freedom now, but the training wheels are definitely on.

I think that’s the thing @Validus kids need to learn how to use phones and internet access responsibly. That means parental controls and difficult conversations and accepting life might be more tricky at times when kids get their phones removed for poor behaviour.

My DD knows I’ll look at her phone at random times, we have conversations about what’s happening in group chats etc and she knows it’ll be removed if I find anything out of order. She doesn’t have Snapchat or discord and if that means she’s out of step with her friends then so be it.

It’s not a case of all or nothing, there’s no other area in life we give kids access to something without teaching them how to use it and increasing their access as they learn, why would it be different with a smart phone.

This is all adult administration. Parents can use all those apps and apps are available on other devices. No need for young children to have any of those apps on a smartphone. The exception is submitting homework on an app, it shouldn’t be the only mechanism as it excludes families who can’t afford additional devices at home.

Yes I agree with that. DS school had 'off and away' and if a phone was seen then it was confiscated and the parent had to turn up and collect it. But it meant they could use them on the way home.

It's unenforceable if discipline enforcement and boundaries are so poor.

Yes it should be banned.