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.

Only just

I got my first mobile in 1999 and that was given to me by a boyfriend at uni. I wasn’t interested in one. Though quite quickly everyone did.

Well I’m sure travel companies.will figure it out. Schools up and down the country are already doing this successfully.

Physical bus tickets have only just gone. And I’m fairly sure one company still does them locally. I don’t use busses much but definitely got a printed return last year.

Never needed to use a phone box.

The train comment feels like an exaggeration. I believe all railcards are still available in physical form except the 25-30 one which hardly applies to schoolkids. And there aren't any railcards for under-16s to use alone anyway. And physical tickets can still be purchased at most stations (though some, annoyingly, don't have ticket machines - but a small minority, in my experience).

If you work in a school I totally sympathise- I can see that all the pressure is on schools (and in England particularly the inspection regime has got of anything even more punitive) and so far nothing on transport companies. That needs to change. The Government needs to enforce action on the transport companies first, before schools can workably enforce a smartphone ban.

My child’s school implemented the pouches in June it works really well.

Travel companies don't really have an incentive to sort it out. We need the travel company to run more than they need to not use an app. The app is cheaper for them to run and doesn't need a human printing and sending out cards.

You need to accept that a blanket overnight ban isn't practicable in some areas. That's the governments fault for rolling something out with little thought beyond London.

It’s £18k to equip a school with Yondr punches which many already have managed to fund and use. It is such a hugely important measure that will bring so many positives schools will simply need to prioritise pouches over something else as it will be worth it. Others have.

The train passes here for teens to prove they are under 16 are an app, provided by the same company as the buses. The sixth formers use a 16-25 railcard but if they already have it as an app, they can't get a card. Some railcards last 3 years.

Many schools outside London already have zero phones or pouches.

18k.is half a teacher. We have had to make teachers redundant because we can't afford them. We don't have 18k.

I think the best would be no phones at all, or at least no smart phones but as many have pointed out the systems in place for getting too and from school just don’t allow that to work. For those who already have smartphones then it’s going to be hard to get them to go backwards anyway!

ds has just left school and his school have just introduced the yondr pouches which seem to be working well. My nephew is starting in September and has already decided it’s not worth taking his phone at all (he doesn’t need it for tickets)

My DC's school uses Yondr pouches. That works well.

This seems sensible.

Others are managing. Pretty poor some schools didn’t see this coming.

Of course they do.

What I'm saying is that currently there are schools (I know we are not the only one) with practical barriers to implementing the legislation. We're likely not getting the whole teacher payrise because my school can't afford it. The head won't spaff 18k on pouches when they can't afford staff.

The government should be funding Yondr pouches in schools where kids need phones to travel. Obviously some schools kids don't need phones to travel, that's easy to implement.

We did see it coming, we still don't have 18k!! It's in minutes of trustee meetings 3 years ago.

It blows my mind that some of you have so little understanding of school and budgets.

They should have already been planning for some time as regards this, like other schools have.

As explained to you, they have been. Planning doesn't magic up money or time. So here we are with the best option in the circumstances.

I see you don't have a solution either....

Schools get different budgets, depending where you are located. The South West for example gets a lot less per pupil, than London does.

Blows my mind that zero solution was thought of for 3 years when other schools have managed to come up with solutions. £18k over 3 years is £6k a year. Maybe cutting back on some of the unnecessary schools trips or proms you often see in the secondary sector could have clawed money back over 3 years. It will need to be done now so 🤷‍♀️

I judge any parent giving their child a phone. There is absolutely no need.

Those parents would rather their child fit in than give any thought or care to their mental wellbeing.

To be fair, we had planned an all out ban until the bus company changed their app plans.

Unnecessary trips, literally we have none because we can't afford.

Prom is paid for by parents.