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

Or she would have walked home in the dark, hit by a car and died. Found next morning. Happened to a school friend of mine.
Or hitch hiked out of desperation. All went well when i had to do that , but i don’t want my children to do that!

The world was a very different place 30/40/50 years ago. Many more homes with a mother at home, tighter communities so neighbours who knew each other and looked out for each other, pay phones… etc etc. We aren’t living in that world so we need to use the advantages we have in this one

Fucking fantasy land.

The 90s were not like this where I grew up.

And some would say that was character building and that she should have just dealt with it, to build resilience. What would we have done back in the dark ages if we couldn’t have contacted a parent (panicked, we would have panicked, it’s not a good thing).

I am so sorry she had to experience that, and thank god that we have mobile phones and she could call you.

But you got through it
If that's the benchmark, make your kids wash in the river and sew their own clothes. And do not offer pain relief at the dentist. And make them eat tripe.

A parent who deliberately withholds a practical item from their kid in order to see if they will 'get through it' has no business offering advice to other parents.

You walked. No train or bus to breakdown or be cancelled and you were at most I would guess 2-3 miles from home. Not comparable at all to a long rural journey to school.

Nor me. I didn’t live in some Enid Blyton story back in the the 80s and 90s. I didn’t see any tighter communities in Slough or kids looking out for each other and I was harassed on trains and busses while adults pretended not to see.

Every generation looks back with rose tinted glasses and it’s maddening.

I was a teenager in the 90s, a mobile phone would have made my life far easier, a smartphone would have been fantastic.

The only thing I’m nostalgic about for the mid 90s was cheap nights out, Britpop and getting served in pubs at 16 with no questions asked.

Completely agree. There were no mobile phones when I was younger, but there were definitely times when I couldn't get to a payphone and a mobile would have been extremely helpful. It seems very backward-looking for people to suggest brick phones shouldn't be used now just because at one time they didn't exist.

Obviously very extreme but it did happen.
She had headphones in and a passenger tapped her and told her to leave the carriage. Then she followed the guard’s instructions. She hid with two older ladies that had little suitcases in the bushes.
Stations near us re all unmanned. So no phone i’d have turned up to unmanned station to meet her presumably to an all trains cancelled on screen and had no idea.
The town where incident was wasn’t where we live so didn’t know anything about it.
When she called and said mum can you get me in Darwen I initially thought she’d got on wrong train.

Or it could very easily have turned out very differently, someone could have picked her up had there wicked way with her then panicked and killed her.

Anything could have happened.
Remember Vicky Hamilton. Years and years before her body was found.

I got hit by a car coming home from school lucky a school mum was walking her child home and saw it happen. Rang my school who then rang home.

Wouldn’t say it was character building though.

It didn’t make me go oh wow isn’t it great that someone else had a phone. It just made me think the driver was an arsehole and that I was going to get a bollocking for my ruined bike.

It didn't though, did it?

All young people dealt with situations like this one way or another before mobile phones. Sometimes they used a payphone. Sometimes there wasn't one. Sometimes mums panicked for hours and kids cried.

Young people these days suffer much more anxiety, failure to launch, difficulty coping with life than previous generations.

I know this is multi faceted and life is very different now. I do not think this is all down to the use of mobile phones. I do think it is partly because of the use of mobile phones. I am not alone in this theory. As anyone who has read Haight will agree. I believe young people today experience less risk in their lives than they previously have, and this has contributed to less resilience. For me, having a child make their way to school without a phone is an acceptable level of risk. And the benefits of having a phone free school are worth the inconvenience of not being able to arrange things with such spontaneity. Others may make separate calculations and I hope you can all find a school that meets your families requirements.

I'll leave you all to it now as I'm bored of being told I've no business advising ( I'm not, I'm sharing my opinion ) that I'm narrow minded, I'm a liar, I'm irrelevant etc. It's an internet discussion, we all have opinions and an equal right to share them.

Our school has phone pouches, the phone goes in and locks so pupils can’t access it during the day. It then gets unlocked when leaving school at the end of the day. Works well and means DS is contactable on his walk to and from school.
Whether or not he should have a smart phone at all is another matter, however he does have strict controls and screen limits.

Well I'd rather know my kids were safe and alive instead of dead and raped, so they will always have a method of communication on them, even if they have to hide it.
The way the world is going it's not safe anymore.

As anyone who has read Haight will agree.
Haidt isn't talking about brick phones in a bag for emergency comms. Haidt talks about smartphones specifically, with social media a particular concern.

For me, having a child make their way to school without a phone is an acceptable level of risk. Any parent is free to follow this approach, but it is not OK to try to force it onto other parents. It's a minority view, not supported by Haidt or the main campaign groups.

'No phone at all' is an extreme fringe position.

I hope my DD isn’t exposed to a fraction of the leering and letching I was. It was sometimes an annoyance and sometimes much much worse. There were times when I had to choose between risks and hope the least high risky option worked. I know a phone would have helped. I lived - many of us have, but what a low, low bar.

I have a friend who is online dating and one of us will always text or call at a predetermined time in case they need a get out clause - loads of people do this. Sometimes people need that get out clause to make a difficult or uncomfortable or unsafe situation easier. Teens and tweens aren’t an exception. Anyone else experienced an overly “friendly” older sibling or sibling’s friend? Anyone had to change routes or stay on a bus or train to a different station/stop as it was safer? Anyone taught their kids when and how to phone 999? If I was a teacher policing if kids had a brick phone, I don’t think I could do it. It’s too fucked up. This isn’t one of those petty rules like not having the ability to cope with a child assessing their own thermal comfort.

Life's different.

There are more rapist than ever before. It was reported the other day at least on rape a day in Glasgow.

Would you want your child wandering around unaccompanied?

My dd is a young adult now and vey capable. Having a phone in her bag hasn’t made her useless. It’s just a tool to use.
I’m a guide leader and we obviously talk through/demonstrate how to deal with scenarios. I don’t want their default to be I’d just phone my mum but access to a phone often makes things easier. Life has moved on and in past bus and railway stations would be manned, there would be pay phones to use, taxi offices with a person in etc.

Thinking of places that would be manned, the police station, lots of small stations have closed.
And yes you could go to the taxi office,
Where would you go to find an operator of Uber?

So, while I don't think banning brick phones is a helpful thing to do, it is worth noting that actually crimes committed against property and the person (for individuals) is down circa 80% compared to the peak in the 1990s.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m0030c2z?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

Really interesting programme from the bbc.

Our taxi offices have shut down to public the old buildings exist but nobody is in them. They all wfh sending the notifications to the taxi persons phones for the few calls they get as most have apps.

As you say police stations all shut apart from the big ones.

It would really end up being shops and cafes maybe a doctors surgery if your lucky.

I just looked up how long my son would have to walk to get back from school - according to google maps, it would be over 3 hours, mostly on rural lanes (no pavement, no lights).
Sure, a means of communication is completely unnecessary (sarcasm).
Or even a device to show him the shortest way to walk (which us not along the railway tracks….)

Yes we are near a decent sized market town and the police station is unmanned, railway station unmanned, no one at bus station. Only bank shuts early. No taxi office.
The school my dc went to isn’t near any businesses.
There’s a community hospital about half a mile away but no reception and I think it only opens 8-4 (does physio, diabetic eye screening etc) in old days it was a bigger hospital and there would have been a manned reception.
If a dc walked over a mile into town I don’t think the council offers are open beyond 4pm. There’s a supermarket with a customer service desk probably the best bet.
I’m struggling to think where a dc who was in a pickle could go and ask them to ring mum.

Sounds about the same as my kids' journey was. As you say - no way were they going without a phone in case of problems. Luckily they've left now, and their school's policy was 'switched off in bag, unless we ask you to use it in a lesson', so they were always able to have one on them.

Forgot about the bus station but yes they removed the information desk and cafe. Now it’s just a couple of signs and vending machines.

The only pay phone that I know of locally that still has a phone in it is actually at the end of my street so that wouldn’t be help to my lot. Though I couldn’t say if it worked just that it is there.

Our council all stop responding come 4pm again unless working from home the office is shut even the council depo for emergency repairs you wouldn’t get though the gates and that’s on an industrial estate anyway.

The dentist and gp kind of half way closes at 4pm apart from Fridays where it stays open till 6pm.

The school I went to it would be one tiny shop across the road, which used to have a payphone.
The next shop the owner was a sleazy git. Girls would avoid at all costs.

Where my sons school is isn't too bad near a garage and a couple of other small businesses.

But not every school is like that. And you also have to consider how many people don't pick up numbers they don't know.
So even if a child does call Mum or Dad might not even clock its their DC trying to get through.