To think parents are not teaching any independence?

[MrBlobbysNuts]

A local parent group is in uproar because their precious secondary school children are apparently "too vulnerable" to get the bus before and after school without a phone (phones have been banned from premises entirely)

How is getting a bus for 15 minutes without a phone unsafe? Back in the day we just had ourselves and we survived. Give the kids cash and teach them to stop relying on phones to get around. The world is no more dangerous than it was 40 years ago, if anything it’s much safer!

We used phone boxes in my day. Always had a BT phone card with us.

Schools need to allow brick phones and the bus companies are going to have to let kids have paper bus passes again.

They are not mutually exclusive in my eyes. Asking for help, who to ask for help, how to ask , where to go (and alternatives) are also part of the plan.

Yep agree

(Mine is at high school)

There's no good reason why we shouldn't have the choice of having our children have phone to and from school nowadays if we want them to.

And the phone I choose. My child's phone is a smart phone but has no social media or wotsapp or internet so I don't agree that I should be changing her phone either.

No problem with them forbidding phones in school.

And the statistics I gave you were from the UK.

Yeah this is the same with my DD’s school. She already has to run to get the school bus because teachers often let them out late, so there would be no time to fetch a phone. If she misses that bus, there isn’t another one and she’d have to wait at school for 1.5 hours until I finish work to fetch her. She’s then on the bus for over an hour, in which time she likes to get her homework done which is set on Teams.

I know a couple of helicopter parents

And it shows.

It also looks much less fun, there are no stories, no news from your kids. The teenagers are still hardwork in that they expect mum to make sure everything is ok.

I think so many parents don’t seem to understand what parenting is. They seem to see their kids as some kind of status symbol - to dress up and create a social life for their parents, a tick box on must does in life.

As long as there are no issues, the sole job a parent has to do is bring up a child, so by adulthood 16-18 they can operate as an independent person, useful to humanity, adding to society.

By the time they reach teenage years they should be confident enough to catch public transport (knowing what to do if things don’t go quite right) navigate round towns, swim to a good standard, choose a place to eat and order food. Know how to navigate through an airport, understand how to navigate and do things in a foreign country esp understanding the differences with the UK. Navigate the London Underground, Be able to plan a meal and cook it independently, buy food independently. Know what is a healthy food choice and the importance of exercise. know how to call the emergency services and administer simple first aid. They should be able to hold conversations with a variety of age groups, converse with teachers independently asking for help and identifying learning needs. Be able to look after a pet independently day to day. Understand money, make independent good choices about spending and saving. From there on in you should be fine tuning over the next few years.

A lot of these scenarios could be solved with a brick phone and an AirTag or similar, with the exception of SEN needs and digital travel cards. At one of our local secondary schools, only 5 kids in one of the new Yr7 class intake had a smartphone, the rest had brick phones or equivalent, and physical cards for public transport.

And parents can still give their children dum phones for this purpose. It's smart phones that are being banned.

Child statistics then: Ofcom estimate that between 1.14m and 1.78m children in total in the UK have no home access to a laptop, desktop or tablet, meaning that the scheme only targeted between roughly a third and a half of children who definitely needed one. The scheme provided laptops to 7 in 10 disadvantaged year 10s.

https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/blog/children-without-internet-access-during-lockdown/

that isn't a small number.

This is an AI overview so I don't know how accurate it is, but it is a sobering thought.

Nationwide, an estimated 2 million young people (14%) in the UK lack access to a learning device suitable for their studies, and about 570,000 (4%) lack both a device and home internet access. This digital divide disproportionately impacts disadvantaged students and deepens educational inequality.
Specific statistics highlight the extent of this digital divide:

• Hardware & Devices: 17% of primary school students do not have access to a laptop or desktop computer at home. Furthermore, 15% of children must share a single device among multiple family members.

• Internet Connection: About 11% of UK households have little to no internet access, forcing students to rely on expensive mobile data packages for schoolwork.

• Vulnerable Groups: Young people not in employment, education, or training (NEET) are at a significant disadvantage, with 20% lacking access to any tablet or computer.

• Higher Education: Among university and college students, up to 24% and 16% respectively report struggling with mobile data costs when learning online.

It depends where you live. My teen was threatened with a knife last year on his 15 minute walk to school. Sadly not a one off for children here and not something I ever had to deal with walking to school in a big city. I’d rather him have a phone for emergencies.

Your statistics are wrong.

Around 14% of young people (roughly 2 million individuals) lack access to a learning device like a laptop. Additionally, about 45% of households with children in the UK fall short of meeting the Minimum Digital Living Standard, largely due to financial or skill barriers

https://www.goodthingsfoundation.org/policy-and-research/research-and-evidence/research-2024/digital-inclusion-datasets

And yet the school will post an announcement about assembly, room changes etc. often after many kids have already left home. It’s not the end of the world of course, just follow the crowd, ask what’s going on etc. but there is the implied expectation that they will be on a phone on their journey to school.

I think I'd prefer my child to have a phone so if they miss the bus or are stuck in traffic or decide to go to a friends house after school, then I'd know. Back in the day there were pay phones everywhere and it was normal to have your important numbers memorised, so there would have been a means of contacting. I'd be fine with a smart phone ban, I think it's much harder to bully people or for messages to go viral on phones with no apps or cameras. So a phone that just does text or calls would be a good compromise

Yes and then mentioned you’re not in the UK which has no relevance.

If you can’t recognise that 6% (of the entire population, not school age children) is a small minority then I can’t help you.

YANBU, I feel strongly about instilling independence and life skills into kids from being young.

For example, I taught DD to cook from being tiny, I sat her in her high chair in the kitchen so she could see what was going on and she helped make food from being a toddler. She started making hello fresh meals from being around 14. Now she’s at uni and she said how glad she is she learned to cook as nobody else her age has a clue.

She is now at uni abroad and did her own applications, sorted private accommodation, her visa and residence permits, and lives with her boyfriend. She drives and is pretty independent, learned the language for the country she’s in, learned how to public transport etc.

Contrast to my 22YO stepson, who can’t cook (because grandparents or his dad do it all for him), he doesn’t take the bus to work (30 mins direct, from the road next to our house) as his dad takes him instead. He doesn’t do his own washing (dad does it) or tidy up after himself (dad does it) and won’t even get up to get his own drink or snack (dad gets it for him). He expects lifts everywhere (as he can’t drive, although he did try, he just couldn’t do it), his dad even did his job application for him. It’s exasperating.

I have started the process of leaving because the house dynamic is unbearable!

I'm a teacher and a parent of teens (who are quite independent) but I think this whole mobile phone thing is a massive government gimmick. My school and my children's school all had a phones away in bags policy before this anyway and it worked fairly well. Many schools are going no phones at all because of the new policy. As a parent that is really quite inconvenient because lire has changed from when I grew up without a mobile phone. We used to have payphone on every street corner and we don't anymore. What if my kids want to go to a friend's house straight from school? What if they decide to stay for a club. Currently they send me a message to let me know because I am still at work.

Also as a teacher, my school has said no phones on trips and insisting parents buy them digital cameras instead.

None of this fixes the real issue which is as soon as they leave school they will all be back on unregulated social media and with unrestricted internet access. What did the government think was happening in my classroom prior to this year? That we were all just sat on snap chat with our phones out? Also, whem Bridgett Philipson said that teachers should not have phones out she has failed to understand that there are multiple bits of school software that require me to use my mobile phone for authentication.....would she like me to stop doing the register then? Again, I don't have time to sit and scroll on Facebook at work, it's only ever out for work purposes.

The school buses are going to have to change as the ones here only accept digital passes.

I worked in a school that had those pouches. They are very expensive as part of the school budget and a lot the kids just had two phones so put an old one in the pouch and kept another hidden. So nothing really changed. School was still having to police it and confiscate phones.

Also we might have had phones 20 years ago but the first proper smartphone was in 2007 and a lot less stuff was digital only like tickets or timetables or booking things.

Its going to be interesting seeing this work in practice over and above the normal school thing on saying we will confiscate your phone if we see it un use until a parent collects it.

I assume this was felt to be doing something even though the big issue is tiktok scrolling at home for 8 hours

We have since provided stats that show that more than 6% of UK school children don't have access to a device. If you can't see the problem and count your privilege, then no-one can help you.

Such double standards

The school require all homework to be handed in on an app.

The bus passes are all on their phones

Yet phones are banned from the school.

I live in a rural area the bus journey to and from school is over 40 mins each way, a few weeks ago the road was closed - the bus driver made my child get off a bus in a village 6 miles away and said it wasn’t his problem the road was closed…without their phone I would not have been able to locate them and pick them up.

We are discussing school children on this thread.

So you can’t see that the majority of UK children DO have access to a device other than a phone?

I had to give mine a smart phone for the bus solely because their bus pass is on an app. They both have old iPhones of mine with no apps/social media on, just the bus pass app and the ability to call or text me. So I’d be happy to swap to a dumb phone if they change the school bus pass system, and if they fund the new phone because the phones they have were provided specifically because they needed it for their bus pass.

DD can do all of those , with or without a phone. However , some of your list is very middle class/London centric.

Not everyone can afford foreign holidays , or even trips to London . How can a child up North learn to confidently navigate the London Underground if they’ve never been?