3 day suspension for having phone out in school

[TooBored1]

Would you think this was reasonable?

For context my DC's school is consulting on going phone free - pupils will have to put their phone into a lockable pouch when they enter school. They will be subject to random bag checks, and if your phone is not in the locked pouch, or if you are caught using it, there will be an automatic 3 day suspension.

Overall, I'm in favour of going phone free, but I think the punishment is too much, especially as it is harsher than that given for fighting/bullying or disrupting lessons.

I also don't think it will prevent cyber bullying, as, as experienced by both my children, this happens in the evening, rather than during the day.

The punishment is ok - your are being unreasonable
The punishment is not ok - you are not being unreasonable

@Needmorelego I stand corrected. The phone policy must be tied into the sanctions policy though. And yes, 3 days is ludicrous if it’s a first offence. They cannot have separate policies for sanctions and essentially, getting the phone out is behaviour.

Not unreasonable at all.

My sister is a secondary teacher.

Until they implemented a similar ban on phones being seen out or ringing, the kids were getting uncontrollable and distracted.

Bullying was becoming rife with kids filming each other and teachers and the videos being put online.

There was also sexting, dick pics and upskirting going on.

The school went nuclear to cure all this and it has worked.

The punishment is detention plus the phone is confiscated until the end of the week and has to be collected by parent or guardian.

It’s the only way to stop kids being distracted from learning.

@PansyPotter84 The punishment here is 3 days exclusion. You have cited detention. Vastly different. What do you think of 3 days exclusion? Proportionate and reasonable or not?

This.

Do kids need phones in schools? I understand it's a new phenomenon and the norm nowadays, but young children really don't need phones in schools.

Not IN school but many need them for getting to and from school.
Which is why schools shouldn't ban them from being in school completely but they should be switched off and in the child's bag.

My DD's school made it very clear in all the pre-admission paperwork and the HT's talk that phones were permitted in school, but if any member of staff heard or saw it, it would be confiscated and kept under lock and key until a parent came in person, in school hours, by appointment to collect it. It worked very well.

Who cares how long the punishment is for. It pretty much irrelevant. A school is trying to ensure they are phone free and need to make it black and white.

Stop undermining the principle of having a rule and live with the consequences. Tell your child it is zero tolerance and get used to it. Bravo to your childs school

Children have been travelling to and from school without the need for mobile phones before the technology even existed.

Yes but back in the day there were public phone boxes and buses accepted cash.
Now both of those are rare.
Children also used to mostly go to their nearest school. That also doesn't happen now. Many are travelling for miles.

No they haven't! No child of mine has ever been suspended. Please go back and read the OP.

And as a person who regularly facilitates consultations in my job, I do understand how consultation should work. I do agree with you that they don't always work properly but it is incumbent on parents to (respectfully) ensure that a proper consultation is carried out.

Please RTT. There is no other option, the MAT controls the education of 16,000 children in my area.

Of course the punishment is relevant and should be proportional to the infraction. You have protections from unjust punishments in your day to day and working life; children deserve the same too.

The question of what IS proportional was the question I posed and I am very open to others having a different view.

I've no problem with the no-phone rule (as long as it also applies to staff, to set a good example) but 3 days is too much. Perhaps it would help if they would show the sanction list so it is possible to compare against other sanctions - if this is a parent consultation, I would ask them to share that information. A detention would make sense. Our school currently just tells you off for having it out, and it's taken until a parent collects it, though tbf there's not much you can do with a phone there as it's in the middle of nowhere with no available signal, so the worst they could do is probably take photos.

Schools tie themselves in knots. One minute making an unholy fuss about dental and medical appointments and the irreversible harm missing a half day session has on education. Next minute handing out 3 day suspensions left and right.

I can see the rationale for having a high stakes sanction - temptation to break the rules is probably high (kids literally addicted to phones) and chances of getting away with it (sneakily checking your phone at break) also quite high. So a 3 day exclusion really demonstrates that however tempting and however easy it would be to break the rule, you don’t want to go there.

@TooBored1 How do parents in a school do that? What mechanisms do you have to ensure any consultation is actually done at all? None. You are not at work and schools often take little notice of consultations if they don’t want to. Parents have little or no influence and, guess what, you won’t all agree. As here some with think 3 days is just fine.

Ive already said I misread the op. Apologies

Think it nonsense school having to purchase pouches. Phones in bags and not fetched out on school.premises. Phone out= phones confiscated. Phones cause so much issues in schools

The results have come in as "The punishment is ok - your are being unreasonable" - hope that helped resolve your issue.

Ok, have it your way. The punishment is proportionate.

A) Because they have had prior warning that they are not to use their phones
B) Because they need to show parents like you who question everything and try to undermine their authority that its not big or clever to ignore rules.

If i was the school the punishment would double for parents like you who have to question it rather than give their heads a wobble for being stupid enough to ignore the rule in the first place.

Would be better to just follow the rules then they wouldn’t get punished.

Op do our kids go to the same school I wonder. My kid has just been suspended for 3 days because he did not have time to get his pouch unlocked (school demand it locked when it's empty) to put his phone in it before getting to registration. His tutor does not accept lateness for sorting your pouch out. (This pouch has been used by the school for less than 2 weeks and lots of children are forgetting to pouch their phones and getting suspensions after random bag searches). So he turned it off and put it in the bottom of his bag. The school decided to do a random search on him and found his off phone out its pouch in the bottom of his bag so he's suspended for 3 days. They have not bothered to supply him with school work either...and did not bother telling me, I found out from my child he is suspended, they did tell his dad though via a phone call. No emails no communication and have ignored my emails.

@cubancyclura I’ve had a big telling off from the op because I thought her DS was suspended! Be warned!

Schools are getting tougher as pupils don’t switch them off and leave them in their bags. DT’s school confiscated the phone if anyone was caught using one. Parents had to collect at the end of the week. Everyone was aware of the rule.

The issue with confiscation it means it would cause problems because of the reasons the child may need a phone (bus ticket etc).
There needs to be punishment. There needs to be consequences.
But I don't think denying a child access to the internet in their out of school hours is fair.