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

I have a daughter in Y7 and she hands her phone in first thing before registration and collects it at the end of the day.

This is the case for all years up until 6th form. Exceptions for medical need only.

There’s honestly no point. Parents just do not get it as you can see from all the replies like this one I’ve quoted.

Well, enjoy your shitty schools with shitty behaviour, made 1000 times worse by the phones. I’ll keep on trying to help your kids pass their maths GCSE until I have enough as well and then there’s one less maths teacher. Thank god we can afford private for ours.

Im out.

I’m in another country, phones are banned at school during the day and it’s all fine, the kids all cope. You can supply your child with a phone as a medical device (eg to check insulin levels) but it’s easy to monitor as there are only a few students using phones for that purpose so it’s infrequent quick glances at the phone, and it often has a case saying it’s a medical device. The ban came in a few years ago, honestly it’s been a game changer. Thoroughly recommend it.

My DDs school have the same policy as yours. I think it’s the best compromise because I want her to have it for the way to and from school for safety and her bus pass. Also I just don’t think it’s practical to have every child drop off and collect their phones at the start and end of the day - it would take so much time they’d end up missing their buses! I’d also be worried about theft and damage.

We try. They use them anyway.

The reality of life in 2025 is that functional life works very much around the assumption that people can access apps/ internet on a smart phone. It's not 1995, there are no pay phones, the bus companies don't put timetables out, the bus fare isn't 32p. There's fewer buildings such as pubs that you could walk into if you had a problem (and u18s aren't allowed up to the bar), so while schools can set whatever policy they like, families are considering the reality of life beyond the school gates.

The DC's school has an "out of sight, out of mind policy". I have no issue with that. If my DCs get their phone confiscated through mis-use, then they'll face the consequences both through school and possibly at home if that's needed to make the point.

I would be fine with the use of pouches/ handing in, but on the scale of a typical secondary school, that puts more pressure on school day timings and admin staff.

I would object to no smart phones on site because that's ignoring the reality of the world they live in. There's been times when buses have been diverted and accessing the bus website, and google maps has been invaluable at keeping autistic DS informed and calm and avoiding a meltdown in the street.

8:20- 3:10, my children are only contactable via the school office. In support of that I've set their Do Not Disturb to those times. (Yes they can override it, but this is in terms of me supporting school, and setting an expectation). I might drop a low importance SMS for them to pick up at the end of the day, but I don't expect a response because I expect them to be focused on learning.

The rot has been creeping in for the last 20 years. I remember a lesson back in the days of polyphonic ringtones when I had a senior member of staff at my door asking why I hadn't submitted a confiscated phone to the office... I was still teaching the lesson! The child had sneakily used a friend's phone to complain to their parents and the parents were immediately contacting the office. Weak management set the tone then of indulging whinging parents and being accusatory to teaching staff and a generation later, those teenagers are now the parents and it's all escalated. Schools gave too much ground on not upholding their policies then, and the fruit of the damage is now.

I delayed access to phones until partway through y6 as my DCs didn't need them until then. Y6 was a more closed, sheltered environment to start the learning curve than 6m later in y7. DS2 learnt that he has no interest in large group chats; he just wants to communicate with close friends. DS1 isn't sociable anyway. I use parental controls. I monitor what they access, I talk with them about internet safety. So far they respect the boundaries because they understand the reasons for them and they're not too punitive or out of touch with the world. Could it go wrong? Yes that's always possible, but I'm trying to give them a safely bounded way to grow and learn. I don't think it's reasonable to hold them back until 16 and hope that they're automatically mature enough not to do daft things with a phone.

When I was DS1's age, we weren't quite at the point of mainstream internet, and mobile phones- I was in my 20s before I had a phone that could do anything other than calls and SMS. There's plenty of idiots my age that didn't automatically enter that era in a state of maturity. My "philosophy" as a parent is that my role is to as healthily as possible (body and mind) to build my children from babyhood to being functional adults for the world they live in. Go back or ahead 10 years and my decisions may well vary, but I'm trying to be as realistic as I can now.

The reality is that if you take mobile phones out of the equation, you have to put additional resources into filling the gaps (e.g. more admin staff to manage communications, install payphones)

Just had a survey actually from my daughters school about raising kids in the digital age via our local MP who is getting views together

its hard isn’t it I know mine doesn’t check her phone at all during the day she is at school and isn’t tempted, manages her screen limits etc and is very good but personality comes into that much more than parenting.
DS doesn’t take his in because he worries about it making noise (we pick him up and drop him off)

getting schools to ban them full stop for me doesn’t solve the issue which is that we have to teach our children how to regulate it how to manage it how not to need to look at it because you can’t do that in a workplace you shouldn’t do it in a university lecture

another problem of course that does unspoken is that OUR usage is out of control, that the addiction to Smart phones is in our generation and that our children are learning this behaviour from us.

My kids' school always banned them on site which I thought was great. They allow brick phones for use on the way in or back home. I don't see why all schools don't do that or all smartphones handed in at start of day as some do.

Honestly can't see any downsides to it.

‘Our children are learning this behaviour from us.’ It doesn’t help, but it’s so much bigger than that now. The brightest minds in the world are ensuring phones are utterly addictive. Some are more prone to the obsession than others but I’ve watched it spiral in recent years to young and old alike, there’s now something for everyone and it’s so hard to fight. They absolutely do need to be banned in schools and it is honestly crazy to me that phones in schools is even a thing.

Children with type one diabetes wouldn’t be able to safely attend school.

I agree. Hence tackling parents and perhaps even some sanction for those who behave like that should be part of any ban or restriction.

Those who have diabetes or other medical conditions managed by technology could legitimately have a phone with them, and this is a medical diagnosis, not some parent as described above.

Obviously schools could make an exception for students with diabetes.

This is pretty illogical though. Do you think that there shouldn't be laws against stealing because you don't steal? Or that there shouldn't be speed limits because you always drive at a sensible speed? Surely you should want the rules at your children's school to be ones which deal with the problems which exist in the school, not just the problems your own dc are likely to cause? The school experience of your dc, however rule-abiding they are, is affected by the behaviour of other students, and how that behaviour is managed.

Teacher here.

Not my job to 'police' phone use. Nowhere in the Teachers' Standards does it say it's my job.

In any case, the tech is there to deal with this issue. Mobile signals can be jammed. It's illegal under the Wireless Telegraphy Act (2006), but I think that Act should be revisited. If it's a matter of child safety, e.g. like knives, then the government has it within their power to legislate, i.e. amend the Act.

Perfectly put. I don’t imagine it will be understood by that poster though.

As teachers on this thread have contested, it is the parents that do not support the school that cause the problems.

Very frustrating.

Why don’t you just tell your child that they’re not allowed to take it with them?

I agree with everything you say, and parent our yr7 & yr8 children the same way as you describe.

Absolutely, they should be taken out of the equation so it’s not even a concern for teachers.

For posters on here that believe collecting in phones at the start of the school day and handing them back out at the end of the day would make more work for teachers, you’re very naive.

It will reduce work for them, and allow them to teach free from the worry of smartphone use.

Of course, there will always be rule breakers and children that don’t hand in phones. But any incidences will be a lot easier to deal with as the pool of potential offenders will be much smaller.

The only thing that worries me is if they need to call a parent we had phoneboxes everywhere they don’t exist now so there’s no alternative if a child needs to contact a parent when out ?

I think it wouldn't be hard to make an exception for kids who have a health or, as I expect could also be the case, an access requirement. Or have them have a tablet with access to what they need.

Because there is tech that you can use with smart phones eg quizzes where students log in using their phones (quizlet and Kahoot).

Photography lessons.

Filming things for assignments eg one of my classes (child care) made puppets and then filmed a story about a child going in to hospital.

If you have homework on the board they can photograph it rather than try to copy it down.

Role plays can be filmed for assessments.

It stops being this 'forbidden' thing and becomes apart of their school equipment.

Thing that civilians don’t get is that it’s about protecting staff too. As employees.
they should be free to do their job without being monitored and potentially posted online.

If they need to contact a parent, they go to the school office and ask them to call them.

in this thread I am not suggesting that they don’t have them to and from the journey to school. There are a lot of good and bad things about mobile phones. One good thing is they allow us to communicate with our children when they’re out of the house, and to know where they are.

In (my!) ideal world, children would not be allowed smartphones though and brick phones would be needed up until 16. But that’s a bigger picture and in the first instance schools can ban them outright in the school day.

I’ll say it again, children that need smartphones with medical devices would be exempt.

But again, in an ideal world, those children that DO use a monitoring device should be provided one that does not require a smartphone. As a society we need to do better. The technology DOES exist to provide these devices without the internet and the ability to download harmful social media attached. In my opinion, this is what children should be given.

For many, many children who’s parents do not understand or care about the dangers, handing children a smartphone is akin to handing them a stash of porn, a hotline to the school’s worst bullies, a pile of snuff tapes, announcing to the world’s paedophiles where your child is, free access to the worlds most fucked up ideologies (beauty standards, red pill to name a couple in a sea of unlimited possibilities) and making them a target for crime if you’re stupid enough to give your child a very expensive model phone.

On a less alarming, but no less serious level, you are giving them a TV, music player, library and hundreds of other tools that they have on them constantly. Exciting! Except that means that they’re unable to concentrate on anything else, lose sleep and their mental health is directly affected.

Children’s brains simply have not fully developed. They cannot restrict their use. They, can. Not.

Well done if anyone on here’s child can. They are an anomaly.

For the greater good of all children, their development, their mental health and their future, we must work together and do better. Schools are a starting point.

Technology is an important part of life.

Children should absolutely be taught it. All these things can be done without relying on students’ mobile phones.

I understand funding is an issue in state schools, but again, this is where these things need to be made a priority!!!

This! In the work place it would be considered poor if you checked your personal phone during a meeting.