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.

You do realise that even if there are phones, kids still do this? And often bus passes are on phones. My daughter’s had a physical pass since Y7 but from Y11 in Sept it’s on her phone.

Husband drops off, I collect. We work staggered hours to make it work.

I almost never use bus/ train / taxi, so I'm naive to needing apps on phones for these things.

We had a pay phone at school and we also carried a phonecard. I’m glad phonecards weren’t banned!

My kids school has pouches for kids to put their phones in. In someway the ban is a good thing as its less distraction during lessons but at the same time my kids timetable is on an app so they either have remember what lessons theyve got and when or write it down before they go in.

I agree with banning them during the school day - my kids' school has phone lockers - but if they have a smartphone then it doesn't make much difference if they are allowed to use them as soon as they finish or as soon as they get home. If they have to get the bus then it's annoying for them not to have a smartphone and if they have a shorter walk home they'll be on it within 15 mins anyway. Also I do think it's a bit hypocritical that the school tells them to lock their phones away but is a 'by your own laptop' school so every lesson they are on a screen and they use shitty edtech for loads of the homework.

How robust are the phone lockers? For security purposes, as I said before the average phone is probably £400, some much cheaper some closer to a grand. That's a lot tech to be in a locker.

And like pouches how do they police it?
Schools with pouches must have all sorts of random junk in them. Bits of plastic, or bits of mental, the old phone.
Then the kids that say 'No I don't have a pouch or phone' as the phone is in bag or blazer.

The classroom safe I can almost understand. 30 in one safe, fairly easy to make sure 30 kids get theirs back at the end of the lesson.
But I'm sure that could be a faff too. "Miss wheres my phone (that I never gave you / put in the safe)"

Fire Alarm goes off who's responsible for the safe? Even 30 phones could be £12,000 worth of phones.

Students don't need a phone during school hours. If parents need to contact them, they can phone the school. Banning phones is the best thing my son's school has done for the students' mental health and increased interactions.
If only more parents realised the incredibly damaging effect of excessive phone use on their children, we could perhaps save the next generation from alienation from the real world.

Well that depends lots of the time it's the travelling to and from school parents worry about.
And as has been pointed out lots of transport require apps.

The pouches work really well.

It means the DC are responsible for their own phones - no safe with lots of phones in.

Not sure I understand your comment about the pouch having bits of random metal in them?!

The pouch becomes part of the school kit, and the DC have to have one even if they don't have a phone, so they can't say "I don't have a pouch".

If they lie about having a phone on them then they will get into trouble if caught, same as any other school rule.

It's worked well in my DC's school. You're always going to get the odd one or two who are determined to break the role, but it has changed the culture of phone use overnight.

Before the pouches were brought in, DC as young as year 7 were routinely being shown unsuitable content including hard core porn by other DC at school.

Now, that simply isn't happening.

How can an 11 year old possibly process hard core porn without it being damaging to them? The government and the schools had to do something. Leaving it up to the parents and tech companies wasn't working.

Our lockers are actual lockers for their bags, coats, PE Kit etc as well. They have a key and the only people with the key are the DC who owns that locker and the finance manager. If they lose the key then a £5 fine is added to ParentPay.

Form teacher time waste of time no learning going on ban display boards phones concentrate on learning

A day ticket for DD to get to/from school is £3.10 on the app and £4.20 if you buy a physical ticket. I can't afford an extra £1.10 every single day so she'll be keeping her smart phone and it'll be switched off in her bag during school hours.

My friend’s dc are at an independent school with no phones… they all use their school iPads or laptops to use WhatsApp 🤣

My dc aren’t glued to their phones at all but if after school they want to go to a friend’s house or into town, it’s helpful for them to have a phone to call me. It’s different to when we were dc - my mum was home (whereas I work) so checking in with my dc after school is part of our routine.

I’ve taught my dc in stages how to use their phones safely. Now they’ll get social media at 16 (which they’re an age they think they know everything) and have to change their after school patterns - school will need to adapt to as they regularly tell dc to message home about something happening after school they forgot to get consent for and I have to sent text consent in.

We’re having pouches due to rural location and bus apps (yes, they exist in rural places - when did you last get a bus?).

100% this

DD's school has had a phone ban since year 7 (she has just finished Yr 11) - they are allowed to keep them in their bag but if they are seen during the school day they are confiscated. It works well. Ds' school has the worst phone ban - in that they are allowed /asked to use them in class for certain things. And then they wonder why kids are still using them during breaks. Dd travels an hour on the bus to get to school so I peefer her to have a phone. Of course we never had them but we made good use of phone boxes to let parents know we were going to be late etc... and those phone boxes no longer exist. Is now a good time to invest in BT I wonder 😁

I hear exactly what you are saying but No chance are phone boxes going to make a come back.
I don't even know how they'd work with the network moving to fibre and voice over Internet.

Somehow we all managed without mobile phones before we had them. We had a front door key and if there was a problem we had neighbours. If it was a real emergency the school had contact numbers. I don’t ever remember having to use a phone box after school. There were always friends’ houses to call from if you had to. My kids never had phones at school as young teenagers. I remember being shocked at the time to be told that some four-year-olds had them. I realise people have become dependent on them now but we just weren’t so policed by parents because it wasn’t possible. And from what I’ve heard from friends is that if a kid doesn’t want to be hassled by a parent they simply don’t reply or answer, which is worse.

My kids are college age and older now but I wouldn't support a blanket ban on phones. My children’s school had a phones must not be seen and must be off during the school day which worked well. A few kids broke the rules and had their phone taken off them, most didn’t risk it.

As repeatedly pointed out back in the olden days there were things call phone boxes children could use on their way home.
Those are now found as novelty items in gardens, or museums.

That doesn't take into account phones, mini computers being used for a zillion other things as well as calls.

Ordering lunch for the school canteen.
Homework on Teams / Google Classroom
Tickets 🎟 for everything
Bank cards and payment.
I'm sure others will add to my list.

We managed to communicate before landlines too. We managed to just turn up somewhere without being told we had to pre-book on an app. We could pay in cash at a carpark. We could even change a tampon if our flow was out of sync with lunch break.

I doubt there were ever phone boxes on the route my daughter’s bus takes! And there most definitely won’t have been one in the lane the bus had an accident in! Or when the driver realised they couldn’t do the normal route because the road had flooded. School wouldn’t have called because they wouldn’t be aware and there wouldn’t be office staff in to call anyway. Thankfully she was able to let us know what was happening.

I mean how do schools police pouches 👝
"Yes Sir there my pouch with a phone in it (actually there's my pouch with random stuff in it, bit of plastic, metal, calculator, anything to add a bit of weight to make it feel like a phone)"

Do you honestly think kids a all going to be a goody two shoes and put their actual phone in a locked pouch?

Maybe parents could help schools with enforcing the correct use of pouches. Maybe if social media ban is enforced that might help too

I agree. I know that people who have kids who have been allowed their phones just can't imagine how they enforce a new rule but it can be done as plenty of schools have managed it. If they are strict enough and the punishment for using a phone is harsh enough then the majority (those who follow school rules anyway) will follow and those who don't will face the consequences. The same as any school rule really.