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

As an example. I would finish school and get the bus to the stables. Walk up the lane. Sort the horses - involving riding in countryside usually by myself (need a phone). Maybe ring the vet or farrier. Ring dad to say I was done and can someone get me (no bus back so had to be collected)
couldn’t do any of that without a phone

@dairydebris
"Isn't it better for your child to learn to cope without, interact with their friends and the world?"
Ask any woman of my age , just on 60 and we'll tell you tales of sexual assault, harassment and inappropriate behaviour. In many areas the dangers ave got worse (but we aren't allowed to say why), having a phone is protection. We shouldn't be telling girls to just cope with life today. I've seen girls use video calling as a means of staying safe. I've been on my way over, when the danger has moved on, because he is on video. Until there is a real effort to stop any abuse towards girls, then give them a phone. It's beyond enraging that 50 years later, things have got worse.

@dairydebris Just out of interest how many hotels/accommodation on your child's route to school housed asylum seekers? How many local murders, of children (not by parents) has there been? What's your district like for violent antisocial behaviour from teens? You can't bike in many areas, they are robbed. Adults get bikes robbed on the way to work.

This thread is full of parents supporting an out of sight in school policy. Many schools manage this policy, some won’t allow smart phones but will allow brick phones, there are a couple that won’t even allow a brick phone for after school travelling or arrangements. Do children attending schools unable to even allow a brick phone have some damascene school, teachers who can’t manage, exceptionally disobedient peers? Not only do I carry a phone, I carry spare tampax, tissues, paracetamol, cash and a portable charger - in case they’re needed - being prepared. My child will also have things in their bag in case they’re needed - e.g. a set square for the less than one per cent of time they’ll need it. It is really off that generations of people have had access to call, but some are suggesting denying it to children today.

I wouldn't assume that this has all been carefully weighed up. Many policies are written rapidly. Then the public see the policy and say 'what about x?'

If there has been a risk assessment balancing harms I think it would be brave of a policy writer to accept the risk of a child being left in a difficult situation without means of contact as the direct result of a policy choice. One kid left at the side of a dark rural road due to bus issues or one serious bullying incident could result in a challenge on safeguarding grounds.

I think overall the policy infringes on rights of individuals outside school.

My own family won't be affected, but my family's previous use of brick phones (at a time when everyone else had smart phones) was useful logistically and supportive of greater independence/initiative than being without a phone at all.

I think it's narrow-minded not to be able to see that a child having a phone (brick or otherwise) is not automatically the cause of someone not having confidence or initiative.

Hardly the typical school kid experience

This seems the most sensible thing.

I'm a child of the 80s parented by a combination of benign neglect and a close-knit community and it was great.
However if I told you tonight at 6:30 when my son failed to turn up for dinner that I had no idea where he was and he could have been anywhere across the city since 3:30 with friends or alone, you'd think I was a pretty poor parent.

I'm a big fan of a ban on campus including at breaks, but without a way to contact me after school I could not allow him to go to friends houses or play football in the park or basketball at the community centre. I'd need to ask him to come home and miss those social opportunities.

It’ll be a cold day in hell before my daughter gets a bus through Wolverhampton without the means to contact me.

Or the police. Two of her friends had to call 999 at the bus stop at the end of term as a man was harrasing them and taking their photo.

I think this would be a more valid argument, but it overlooks the fact that “back in the day”, children largely attended schools very local to them.
Nowadays sadly, this is not the case, many need numerous bus chsnges/trains/lengthy walks in between.
If you have a SEN child lucky enough to have transport, they still need a brick phone often as these systems fail regularly.
What is more desperately needed is access to schools local to a child, above access to a phone (I detest the world we are in too), which is only necessitated by the system that fails so many families.
Also consider older siblings who check in with a parent upon collecting younger children, they also bring peace of mind to complex arrangements.
We don’t operate in ideal circumstances, so brick phones are for many a vital compromise.

Does 'we aren't allowed to say why' mean you think increased danger to young girls today is because of immigration? I mean just say it if you think it, why not own it?

The vast majority of violence against women and girls is commited by someone known to that woman or girl. I'm not convinced that stranger violence is now more likely than it was when I was growing up- I'd be interested to know where you get your stats from.

Nonetheless I don't teach my girls the world is a scary place they need to be kept safe from. I want them to move through it confidently. I do think we should be telling girls they can cope with life today. I don't recognise the world you're describing. And I definitely don't believe a phone keeps a person safe from violence.

It was where we lived in the countryside. If it wasn’t horses then it was chores or farmers or similar. We weren’t rich, I was at a stables in the arse end of nowhere with no house so no phone and nobody else there as they were working still

DDs school have an out of sight phone rule.

They did say that they also had to be out of site and switched off in the after school provision they provided as well.

It’s a grammar and the girls travel from all over the place to get there. They have a hub that the girls can stay in school until 5:30 to be collected.

My own dd goes there some days and who knows when I’ll finish work to get her. Sometimes 4, sometimes 5. I never really know what time I’ll be there before 5:30.

The phone ban meant that I, and countless other parents, had to call the after school to let them know we were on the way.

The after school provision phone ban lasted a week 🤣 All the one poor member of staff was doing was constantly answering the phone and finding girls to pass a message on to and it was carnage.

I disagree. I walked to school and back, no issues, with no mobile phone and no public telephone boxes en route, as did hundreds of kids at my school. There needs to be a backlash against this culture of needing to be contactable all the time.

I appreciate others will take a different view.

Oh you walked 45 minutes, so about 2-3 miles tops, presumably on an actual pavement rather than an unlit NSL B road. So your opinion about the safety of long rural commutes with no means of communication is completely irrelevant.

And wtf is a school district?

It’s stupid and not fit for purpose in our modern world. I am pretty anti-kids on phones all day. But our school has yondr pouches and they work well.

I don’t want dd on her phone at school. Though the school does communicate with students via an app during the day, which they are expected to monitor, but now can’t access because it’s on their phones in the pouch until 3:10pm every day. 🙄 I know, make it make sense.

But I do want her to have access to her phone before and after school. We live 15 minutes from school by bus and she goes straight from school to her job and then to sports training until 9pm at least 2-3 days a week. She’s 13. She shouldn’t be out at night, even if at training, in a town 15 minutes away without a way to contact us in an emergency.

I mean, one day the bus was taking her to school and there was some issue with the bus and the driver literally veered off the road, drove into a field, parked the bus and made them all get off the bus and stand in this field in the middle of nowhere waiting for a replacement bus. Dd was weirded out being in a field and not knowing where she was with this bus driver so she video called me so I could see what was happening and I could see her location. Another bus did come get them eventually, but it was creepy.

Obviously, back in the 90s, we all just got on with it when creepy things happened to us. But now we have mobile phones and there is no reason girls (and boys!) shouldn’t have the freedom to have a way of calling for help in a situation that is feeling dodgy.

Very typical for rural kids. Not everyone lives in a city. And ‘back in the day’ there were phone boxes everywhere, not just in villages but often at random crossroads of two lanes in the middle of nowhere.

Yes we had two payphones in my senior school - one by the head teacher's office and one by the lunch room. Perhaps any school that bans mobile phones should be required to provide phones on-site - perhaps one phone per 400 pupils or so? You need to be able to let parents know if you're doing something different after school.

Well that’s the thing isn’t it, we just had to get on with it.

I just had to get on with it at the bus station after school when a man kept asking me to kiss him and all the other adults pretended not to see a shuffled away. I had to get on with it on the train at 15 when a man shoved his hand up my school skirt.

I don’t want my daughters to just have to get on with it. I want them to be able to call for help, video them, anything. Get off the bus straight away and call for help, rather than having to stick it out.

I don’t understand people who want children to learn to live without phones. You live without your fucking phone! I use mine for eveything, all the time. I’d be screwed if I didn’t have it for a week. That doesn’t make me sad, it makes me happy that we have technology literally at our fingertips to mass our lives easier.

Is it a secondary school where pupils move between classrooms every 40/50 minutes? The admin of putting phones in drawers, giving them back to the correct pupil, back in the drawer etc is very time consuming. Also means the pupils have the phones in the corridors.

We live 15 minutes from school by bus and she goes straight from school to her job and then to sports training until 9pm at least 2-3 days a week. This is exactly why some kids need a phone outside school. It's fine for kids who just walk to school and back, but the busier the kid is the higher the chance that something will get cancelled or disrupted!

Because it gets your post deleated. I don't need stats, we had/have the problem locally. I'm from immigrant background. My sister's (half) father was Windrush. This is an issue with men from cultures were children can be married from the start of periods and 14 year olds aren't off limit. From where men think girls out alone/not covered, are asking to be abused. Naturally there going to be sexual frustration. When you have groups of adult men, waiting to pick off anyone vulnerable, it changes your opinion on things like having a phone. We've never had to give 12 year olds anti rape advice when going to school, in some areas we are. I had a post deleated because I linked antistabbing lessons in local primary schools (this was after Southport). The incidents at our local high school was denied to be happening. It took the girls filming the adult men telling them that it didn't matter they were 14, asking for a kiss etc and posting it across social media, to get anything done. One of the men has been charged with the kidnap and rape of a girl were he was moved to (leaked by a worker). I come from a background of confident women, being unaware of possible dangers isn't taking anyone's confidence away. Children aren't our personal social experiments. Do get involved in housing those asylum seekers in quiet, rural places, such as Barnham, so everyone gets to share our experiences.

Exactly - unfortunately some people can’t conceive of children doing annything other than a 20 minute walk to school and back.

Dh and I both work very flexibly. Yes, one of us downs tools to drive the 30 minute round trip to collect them. Same as we do for illness or when school closes early for ice or when the bus service is cancelled due to a road closure. I’d say it happens at least once a month.

We live rurally where there is no public transport. We obviously can’t just leave them at school overnight to fend for themselves. 😂 I don’t know anyone who couldn’t manage between two parents, or sometimes a helpful family member or friend, to go collect their children from school in an emergency. What else would you do? I don’t have household staff. 🤣

I always think about this dd was free roaming with her friends on their bikes they rode down a hill her friend came off head first she was hurt bleeding they had no phone some (fortunately nice) people came along loaded the girls and bikes into the car and took them to the injured girls house turns out she had fractured her skull had they a phone they could have called a parent for help instead they got into a strangers car children make poor decisions and ive noticed stranger danger isn't really talked about in schools these days its all full of positive sunshine happy attitudes everything will always work itself out etc etc yes I taught my child to be careful but apparently not enough

Brick phones are a suitable item to carry for safety especially as there are no phone boxes