Banning brick phones on journeys from school

[Gridloch]

Are they seriously considering banning brick phones so children can’t be contacted before/after school? How is that sledgehammer to crack a nut rational or defensible?

https://www.scotsman.com/education/parents-allow-brick-phones-in-school-or-campus-ban-will-fail-8943319

@Gibgertea
"Phones don’t bring freedoms they bring dependency, addiction, bullying, abuse….the list is endless"

Does that include a basic "dumb" phone that basically makes phone calls and text messages?
To me a dumb (aka brick) phone is just a handy piece of equipment that lives in your bag like your house keys and wallet.

Pre phones they used physical bits of paper called tickets.
Now they use digital tickets.

How can a someone without a smart phone show a digital ticket?

And you still can manage it without phones. You just don't get to dictate to everyone else how to run their family logistics.

The message today is you can’t do anything because you’re not capable unless you have mummy in a state at the end of your phone permanently attached to you. This is a fantasy that exists inside your head you've either invented or acquired from somewhere.

You haven't even understood the post.

The bus company only accepts the tickets on a smartphone app. There is no paper ticket option.

No phone, no bus to school.

Yes pre-phone you paid cash for buses or had a physical bus pass.
But bus companies changed to using apps.
If schools are going to ban phones then the bus companies need to return to having physical bus passes - either a laminated piece of card or a smart card.
Until bus companies do that 1000s of school students need a smart phone to literally get to school.

How would have me being able to phone my dad and say “the train is delayed, they are saying it will arrive an hour late” have hindered my development in anyway?

I’d love to know.

I do understand if you are very worried about your kids and smartphones, but every family is different and your problems are not necessarily shared by everyone.

Our brick phone was a help not a hindrance, a rarely-used tool not a distraction and definitely increased freedom, autonomy and initiative-taking.

exactly!

Why are people arguing against BRICK phones fgs?

Have you contacted your LEA and MP? Also you could contact the media (not with your names/sad faces!) as this is ridiculous.

The whole system is so fragmented, it's impossible at times!

I have 0 issue with anyone who doesn’t want their child to have a phone. Do what works for you and yours. What works for me is for my daughter to have a phone in her bag, switched off and locked down during the day, turned on after school when she’s alone for half an hour and then at dance classes for 5 hours, then turned off overnight.

She doesn’t have Snapchat or TikTok or anything like that. She is on it for max an hour a day either reading or doing duolingo (we have screen time so I can see it) and she knows she can call me if she needs me or gets hurt or someone follows her home again. There are 0 problems and only solutions with this situation in our house.

if your child needs a different setup… do what works for you. I just can’t understand why anyone should be able to have this sort of control over my child when she’s not even at school.

Especially in rural Scotland. My son travels 25 miles to school.

If he misses the bus, gets on the wrong bus etc it's not like he can just walk home and he can't just jump on another bus because they don't exist.

The buses have got stuck in the winter. Once they had to sleep at school. All fine when you know what's happening.

And yes you can say "well we managed' but
Iife was different then. You had phone boxes and an agreed 'snow contact' near the school. Schools weren't all in big hubs further away like they are now.

I think you've and from school is different to the school day.

Probably for the same reason my nan used to insist televisions turned your eyes square or that the Beatles were the downfall of humanity.

Some people just love to live in the rose tinted past. I don’t get it at all.

I think they would change their minds pretty fast the day their 13 year old still wasn’t home at 7pm and they had no idea where they were or no way to contact them though. Happened to a colleague of dh, dead against any sort of technology. There was a mess up on busses, first day of year 8, they didn’t know where their child was for two hours. That kid was kitted out with an iPhone and find my friends pronto.

My DS will be getting the bus and his ticket is on his phone, so I don't know how it would work if he couldn't take it.
When I was at school my bus often wouldn't turn up, sometimes it broke down and once it even crashed! I was left to walk along a country road with no pavements in the dark as I had no way of contacting my mum. I definitely don't want that for my DC.

why can’t your child walk? What do you think people did before buses?!!!

I’m not being serious of course, it’s stupid.

The bus companies in our area have been able to provide a physical bus pass option with a few months notice.

Has anyone ever told or heard someone share a shitty experience which is punctuated by “that was before mobile phones”, where the outcome could have been alot better if they’d have had a phone!

I also see threads complaining about parents who have no idea what their kids are up to. When parents want to know where they are, it’s mollycoddling.

That's good for your area.
But no school should ban phones until the relevant public transport available has changed.
Once changed - then they can ban smart phones in school.

Ha, yes, it’s ridiculous isn’t it.

”Why didn’t you know where your 13 was at 9pm, you shitty parent! You should know where your children are at all times or it’s your fault if they go off the rails.”

Vs

”13 year olds shouldn’t have phones. If the bus breaks down, they can walk two hours home and have no way of contacting you, or they could go up to a random stranger and ask to use a phone. Anything else is hindering their development. You don’t need to know where they are at all times.”

God, people are fucking nuts.

A few months, that's helpful for kids already back at school.

I honestly don't know why schools are being so difficult with this stuff. The issue is social media not phones.

Its the same as kids used to be allowed to decide if they were too hot, too cold or whatever, now they must be wee robots who all keep their blazers on regardless of individual comfort

Well, good news - our school has been back for less than a week and has relented and said all pupils who use public transport (which is over half - the rest are on school buses), can take phones as long as they stay in their lockers during the day. This is after a disastrous week of flooding and water leaks causing buses to be diverted, cancelled and delayed and no-one knowing what the fuck was going on or where the pupils were. I suspect that after the hundredth parent calling the school asking where on earth their child was they realised the folly of the plan.

To be honest I don’t think the school were ever keen on it - it was imposed by the Academy Trust which is city-based and has little understanding of rural schools - they once tried to impose a policy of ‘black or dark blue coats only’ - brilliant when walking on unlit roads…

Bus company has been really helpful actually yes. The few months notice started... a few months ago. The bus passes have been collected by the kids from school. The problem was worked around.

The schools are trying to do their best with the societal problem of young people and phones. That's it.

Realise every area is different and I am not rural. But the majority of the parents I've spoken to are happy with this policy for now. In my district.

@dairydebris,I was interested in the Kent policy. I had a google but can’t find anything that says Kent schools have banned all phones on journeys. Have I got the wrong end of the stick from your posts?

My school has.
Not sure about others, there was lots of talk about it when doing tours back in Oct last year.
The bus companies probably panicked but did manage to sort.
The specific wording is that all phones are prohibited. We were sent a communication with faqs making it clear that phones were not expected to be taken on the journey either.
As with all new policies- like the no social media in oz etc- I don't think anyone expects it to be followed to the letter and some people will make exceptions for themselves. Nonetheless there will be far fewer phones of either type in school and I believe that was the aim of the policy- which obviously I'm fully on board with, as are all the parents I know.
Rural kids are taking public transport without, at least some of them are. Most people have a friend or an older sibling to travel with or a free parent for a lift.
We'll see how it goes over next few terms. I hope it works out because the vast majority of kids bike or bus.
Realise I sound like an annoying evangelical about this but I have real genuine concerns about phones in young people's lives and think this policy is sensible at macro level while accepting it inconveniences individuals. Who will hopefully very quietly break the rule.

Realise I sound like an annoying evangelical about this but I have real genuine concerns about phones in young people's lives and think this policy is sensible at macro level while accepting it inconveniences individuals. It's not about being evangelical, anyone can preach on any topic, it's about infringing on the rights of others to conduct their family's out of school life as they see fit.

I am interested to see what happens to the more extreme school policies if/when this sort of incident occurs: disastrous week of flooding and water leaks causing buses to be diverted, cancelled and delayed and no-one knowing what the fuck was going on or where the pupils were. I suspect that after the hundredth parent calling the school asking where on earth their child was they realised the folly of the plan.

Ultimately rules only survive with majority support. Parents should make their views known to school, politely.

Parents can use their own brains though. Who is going to know that a child has a phone in their bag, switched off to use on the way home? No one.

My dd takes her phone. She’s not daft. She knows that if she gets caught with it, it will get confiscated. She keeps it switched off and in an inner pocket of her bag. All of her friends do.