To think all schools should ban the use of smartphones entirely during school day?

[90sseemedsomucheasier]

I would welcome a ban on smartphones in my child’s secondary school.

At present, in my child’s school they are allowed to take them in, but the rule is that they are to be kept at in their bags and not be seen at all. I think they get a couple of behaviour points if seen, and if seen for a third time then it is confiscated.

I know that, had smartphones existed when I was in school, I would have been a master a checking it without getting caught. I would have been on social media, messaging my friends, secretly listening to music with one AirPod under my hair, looking up answers to questions I didn’t know. I’d have never got in trouble because I would have been stealth like in my use of it. But it would have distracted me, it would have called out to me all day. I’d be waiting for my next check of it and thinking about it. I would therefore not have worked as hard, or chatted to friends as much. It would have fed me a horrible narrative about what I should look like, what my life should be like, how everyone appeared better than me and I’d be full of anxiety and not feel good enough.

This is what is happening to our children today. They don’t have the strength to stay away from them - they may not be seen doing it but they are constantly on them. Even the best behaved kids.

Even if teachers do notice a child having a quick look at their phone, they’ve got so much other stuff to do with the demands of their job - are they going to challenge the child and make more work for themselves or are they going to pretend they haven’t seen it.

Children take secret photos and videos and send them to one another to ridicule and bully. Inappropriate contest is airdropped and shared via WhatsApp groups.

As a parent, I am on it with internet safety (as is dh). We use parental control tools and my year 7 child is not allowed social media,free access to the internet and we monitor their use of their phone each evening. There are screen time limits and phone switches of at 7pm and is not allowed in bedroom.

I often feel like we are going against the grain in doing this. I feel alone and like other parents don’t see the issue with handing our children a device where they can access ANYTHING and absolutely will access anything because they are naturally curious. Curiosity is normal, but the level of information, the horrors, the ideologies and the algorithms that form as a result are not. They are extremely damaging.

I know, when I look online (I know, the irony) that there are other parents that feel the same way. But it is hard in real life. When you’re child goes to secondary school and makes new friends who went to a different primary you have no idea what their parents, and their parenting choices, are like.

Whilst I know my child is safe online in my home, I don’t know when I send them out to school. They can be exposed to all sorts of horrors / porn / ideologies because other parents send their child to school with unrestricted smartphones, whether that is because they don’t understand the dangers, or simply do not care.

do any other parents agree with me that schools should be made to ban smartphones entirely? And by ban I mean asking students to hand them in - either a locker or a faraday pouch on arrival. I get that they are a part of life and needed for safety on journey to and from school (although I would argue that for many they don’t actually even need it for that!). But during school hours they simply do not need them and should not have access to them.

This has been rolled out in some schools already and the benefits are already being seen. I would welcome it in a heartbeat if my child’s school did this!!

What do you think? Would really love to hear people’s opinions -

YABU - children should be allowed access to their phones throughout the school day

YANBU - all schools should ban smartphone access on school sites entirely by asking students to leave them at home, place them in a phone locker or in a faraday pouch

The thing is though, I know my child is following the rules. I don’t know that little Mikey whose parents have no restrictions on their child’s phone isn’t going to get his out and try and show my child the sort of inappropriate content I am trying to protect them from or video them and send it around etc etc.

The problems with smartphones are, in the main, not from the children whose parents are parenting.

A few people have commented on this thread about the workload / 1000-1500 kids having to handing in their phones. It’s not that many children handing in their phones to one person. Systems are easily implemented making it a quick and easy task (much like how 1500 children have exercise booked handed to them and back in throughout the day with no issue)

But that's an entirely different kettle of fish. Exercise books can be stored in a box on a shelf in a classroom and no one is going to try to steal them. If an exercise book is lost the child can just be given a new one. There is very little issue if a child gets handed the wrong exercise book, they'll just pass it to the right kid. And kids don't care about handing over their exercise book.

Honestly, it’s so easy to do. Many schools are doing it. If you’re worried about your child’s phone getting stolen, don’t send them in with a ridiculously expensive one. Another argument for why simple brick phones are what children should be given.

When this is the norm in schools, children follow the rules as a whole. It’s not going to entirely eliminate the problem because, as with life, there are always going to be people who feel it doesn’t / shouldn’t apply to them, but it will dramatically reduce the problem.

Yes, it takes some logistics/ teething problems to set up initially but this shouldn’t be a barrier to safeguarding children.

There ought to be some sort of signal schools can put out and phones can pick up that blanks phones from all calls and activity during lessons. Then the school could turn off the signal for 2 minutes at the end and beginning of each lesson and during break time for the kids to check phones for messages/timetables etc.

But the vast majority of secondary school pupils are not young adults. They are kids.

I'm not a parent, I'm a teacher worried about losing some kid's expensive phone. I don't get to control what the parents buy their kids.

I am asking about the logistics. Where are these phones safely stored during the school day? How do I get the phones off 30 kids and hand them back to the correct 30 kids? How long does it take at the beginning and the end of the day?

I haven't got room in my classroom to store them, I've barely got enough room to fit the kids in. So then what? Where are these 1500 phones stored?

In DD’s school (admittedly private) they use Yondr pouches which parents have to pay for (£25). No Yondr pouch, no phone at school.

The fact that the parents pay for the pouch means the system isn't suitable for state though.

Yes of course.

God, I hate the phrase “young adult” to describe children, minors, people who aren’t adults, young or otherwise.

Talk about blurring the boundaries between adults and children 🚩🚩🚩

Still, handy for those who like to abdicate tough parenting decisions to their kids 🙄.

I disagree - it becomes part of the cost of the phone. If you can afford the phone you can afford the pouch. If you can’t afford it then your kid doesn’t get to take their phone into school, or you buy a cheaper phone/get a cheaper package.

We managed to go to and from school without any phones before they came along.

According to my DC, they put their phones in a cupboard in the form room at the start of the day. Locked. Then unlocked at the end of the day.

That's talking about future phone purchases. If the child already has the phone (and you are assuming that they have been bought a new phone rather than being given a hand-me-down) then £25 isn't part of the cost of the phone, it's an additional cost which many families can't afford.

Telling a parent that their child can no longer take their phone into school also isn't going to work. That's why so many schools have an 'off and out of sight' policy rather than a 'completely banned' policy.

There's no room for a lockable phone cupboard in my classroom and I am often not there at the end of the day because I am part time.

I'm just pointing out that it is not logistically as easy as some are trying to make out.

£25 over the lifetime of the child in school isn’t onerous. Even for a child in their last year of school it’s 65p a week for the school year. We can’t make decisions based on those who have children they can’t afford.

We as a society need to address the impact of smart phones on children and all involved need to get on board and help find solutions, instead of shooting down every suggestion, including suggestions that have been shown to work in different school environments. I can’t imagine phones in schools are welcomed by teachers.

Yes I completely agree that children can get away without one. You’ll see in my many other posts. However, not the technology is there and phone booths etc have been removed I recognise that it makes sense for children to have a PHONE so that they can contact an adult if they need to. A smartphone is a different matter. But you’ll see on this thread, that I am all for children developing skills without phones.

I’m a teacher too. I’ve never met one before that thinks smartphones shouldn’t be banned due to easily surmountable logistics being a barrier. They would prefer to make it work because they feel that the benefits to the developing brains and the overall safety of the children they work with is worth it.

Smartphones are almost universally banned in schools. As in they are not allowed to be used and will be confiscated if seen. Of course teachers are in favour of kids not using phones in schools.

In terms of banning phones from the school site, that's something in addition to phones not being allowed to be used/seen. That's where the logistical issues come in, and there needs to be quite a bit of persuasion that it is actually worth the cost/effort.

In terms of banning phones from the school site, that's something in addition to phones not being allowed to be used/seen. That's where the logistical issues come in, and there needs to be quite a bit of persuasion that it is actually worth the cost/effort

My DCs use their smart phones for train times and switch routes home depending on cancellations etc, which has meant going to a different station. They always check train times before leaving for/from school.

Trouble is that would affect a kid in the class with CGM - or me in the next room relying upon my phone to run my hearing aid.

It's far easier (and cheaper/safer/actually practical) to have lockable boxes per form and they're collected 30 at a time during registration - box then gets deposited in a room behind reception and any early leavers collect their phone as they go, those who had medical appointments have their phones added to their form box and lates have their phones in a separate box that is taken to the late detention that afternoon - which also means they are more likely to attend it without issue.

Yes, the boxes require purchasing, it needed changes in routine, but with the reduction in phone related incidents, it's been a massive saver in time, money (as in working hours spent dealing with phones in school) and workload (in not having to deal with 1250 phones in school).

Our comp switched from "off and out of sight" to a trial of "handed in to form teachers and kept in locked cases in the office" for Y7 and Y8 to Yondr pouches for all. Financial assistance for the first pouch for families who can't afford the cost.

The teachers I've spoken to + the official comms about it say the difference between off and out of sight and having them locked away in the pouches is huge. So many kids are addicted and the availability of the phone is a huge distraction even if the policy is there not to look at it. Overall behaviour has improved, they say concentration and engagement is also better, more kids are attending clubs and other extra curricular stuff.

Schools need to find the system that works best for their circumstances but I do think all kids benefit from phones being inaccessible during the school day (with exceptions for medical necessity) and it would be a vanishingly rare school that couldn't find a way to enable this that works for their circumstances.

I think you can still get the separate cgm receivers for dexcom and libre? That may be a compromise for t1 diabetics if there was a total ban on smartphones as it would maintain the level of care (would be unfair to make them revert to traditional testing)

What’s being over 6ft got to do with it? Do we not have rules in life once we get over 6ft?

What it's got to do with it is that large, adult-sized young men quite often don't feel they should be told what to do by women. Nobody's saying that's a good thing.

I saw an article today that says over 90% of schools already do ban smartphone use. Only 8% actually take the phones away from the students for the school day though.