Mobile phone ban in school

[Scalagala]

Post inspired by comments on other thread. Would you support a blanket ban on mobile phones in your school? This means no mobile phones - including brick phones - to be allowed in school at all, so hence no access on the way home / on to other activities.
YABU - support a blanket ban.
YANBU - schools could adopt other methods such as pouches or phones off during school day.

Some students with medical conditions do, like the 30,000 children in the UK living with type 1 diabetes. https://breakthrought1d.org.uk/news/letter-to-gillian-keegan-about-the-use-of-mobile-phones-in-schools/

This policy has been rushed in with no thought of how the public messaging will affect children who rely on smartphones for medical reasons. Not only do they now have to deal with eg type 1 diabetes, they now have to deal with feeling seemingly excluded from smart phone free schools unless their school has remembered to include the small print exceptions necessary to enable them to attend.

The level of ignorance displayed in public discourse on this topic does not fill me with confidence that the medical needs of affected children will be met.

Yes, even when they are forced to let those kids have their phones to help them stay alive, that will mark them out and force them to have to share their private medical history with anybody who sees them and asks.

Plus it won't even 'just' be quiet 'asking' when it's jealous other kids who want to go on SM themselves, it will be making a big scene that "Phones are meant to be banned, but Olivia is allowed to use hers; but I'm not, so that's unfair and favouritism..."

Olivia will be marked out and shamed as the 'lucky' one for having a life-long, life-threatening health condition - not unlike able-bodied people who complain about blue badge-holders being allowed to park 'wherever they like' or getting concessions that they don't get... because they obviously are privileged enough not to need them.

No I’m saying anyone who needs to phone 999 isn’t exempt from the rule. That’s what I was replying to.

It already happens at our school.
All the diabetic students have full access to their phones, no one else is allowed.
This is life and people need to respect the rules. I have never heard anyone question these students. It is what it is and they accept it.
it’s a good lesson in respecting others needs.
Most students are very understanding.

There are medical pouches. But those children will always have had access to their phones etc when other students have not been allowed to have access to their phones during the day

Honestly I just wouldn't be the least bit surprised that's the case. Its just so predictable.

Were you never a child?

Kids will use whatever they can get away with to fill the pouches, from old phones, to being creative make something phone shaped, bits of metal, plastic or cardboard, dud AAA batteries, glass or stones to add weight.

Whatever they can get away with.

It doesn't surprise me the only people winning out the pouches are the companies who make them.

What would make much more sense is to ban social media for under 16s and ensure parental controls remain in place on phones until kids are 16 too

Perhaps children with special needs could have a medical exemption, and be allowed to carry a phone to be used for this purpose? The rest of the children should not be allowed to have one, as they do not need them.

Absolutely not.
that would be a huge amount of students.

True. I strongly support a total ban, but was answering to the mother of a child whom, she argues, would need the phone for medical reasons. Perhaps there could be other devices the child could use?

You do not need a smartphone for continuous glucose monitoring- my db does not have a smartphone and was given a small tablet like machine that records his blood glucose levels from the patch on his arm.

Is he on a closed loop pump system? Most T1 children are and that requires a smart phone. If he is not using a smart phone his results won’t be uploaded to Medtronic, his medical team or family (if you’ve set that up) in real time. They will have to be uploaded separately.

Abbott stopped giving out freestyle libre readers as standard quite some time ago on the basis that people could use a smartphone instead enabling greater functionality. Why take that away for school children?

https://breakthrought1d.org.uk/news/letter-to-gillian-keegan-about-the-use-of-mobile-phones-in-schools/
In short, nothing which delivers the same functionality, no. Removing a smartphone used to run a closed loop insulin system and automatically upload the data, from a school child, would be discriminatory under disability legislation.

The fact I’m having to address comments like “can’t you use another device” shows how this legislation is already forcing parents of T1D children onto the defensive.

We have fought for YEARS to get better tech for children who have to manage this condition so they feel less different to other children, then one rushed though, ill communicated policy threatens to undo so much good work.

The school should be able to accommodate a phone for this; it’s also possible to shut down the other apps except what is needed for that during school days. Staff could have the access code if needed.

My own school did this for a child and a teacher on the same.

Anecdotally, I know parents with this outlook. Their offspring are engaging in wildly risky behaviour on- and offline. The parents are clueless while dear child is accessing and sharing things that would make most mumsnetters clutch their pearls.

@BeSunnyLemonSheep are your dc still at primary?

Schools HAVE to be able to accommodate this, otherwise it’s discriminatory.

However, imagine how this sounds from an affected child’s perspective - an affected child who is already managing a life long chronic condition, day in, day out, and who has been given technology by the NHS to help deal with this.

Schools “should” be able to accommodate them?! It shouldn’t even be a question. Those children need support, not be made to feel like they are an exception which “might” or “should” be able to be accommodated.

This is what has been overlooked in the roll out of the smart phone free schools policy.

It's horrendous how blase some people can be with giving away the basic access to deal with needs that only affect other people, and tell them that they should be grateful for a few highly inappropriate crumbs that they deign to throw them instead - on the grounds that some more privileged people will just abuse the same privilege.

We already have school girls with period issues who routinely go into school with dread, or even avoid going in at all on those days - because they are denied the basic dignity of being able to go to the toilets and deal with them discreetly... because 'they're kids, and kids only ever ask to go to the toilets to mess around and get out of lessons'.

At both my DC’s schools they have to keep the phone in a locked pouch when at school - works pretty well

@Q2C4 I completely understand your concern, and thought it was clear from day 1 that T1 diabetics would be exempt. It would be unacceptable if some schools decided the ban should apply to them.
I do however support the ban, despite the jealousy/envy it might create, as we can’t deny it will greatly reduce harm from screens/social media for a whole generation, and this can’t be ignored.

No because children do need access to bus tickets (many are saying these could be physical, but that isn't what bus companies offer in a lot of cases).

They aren't banning them from having screens - it's only at school. Sensible kids like my DS, who would send us messages occasionally at break time to ask us to get cooking ingredients they needed, or to communicate changes of schedules for trips, cancelled clubs etc. now don't have this facility available to them.

But there's no need to worry about the kids who are allowed unchecked on their phones as much as they like - they'll still be able to 'enjoy' those harms for all the time they aren't at school.

should and must are safeguarding words in the safeguarding document; used interchangeably. There’s no way that that a school would refuse to allow this

(Must means if a school doesn’t do it it’s an immediate criminal offence.)

My daughter gets two trains to school. And she has a brick phone and an apple tracker. It only has nine and her dad’s numbers in it.