AIBU to ask for advice on how to overturn a school decision - quickly

[Canwehavesesomesanityback]

What can I do to overturn a school decision - quickly? It is regarding mobile phones. The school has introduced a no phones at school policy. If a teacher is on a journey home and sees a child on a phone, they will “chase them down the street and snatch it out of their hand” as it shows they had a phone in school.

There was a horrible and frightening incident fairly near school today. So whilst school were busying themself with catching children out for taking a blazer off at a bus stop or using a phone after school, my child was involved in something bloody terrifying. I’ve been up half the night. It should involve the police, but we are not going down that road and time would have been of the essence anyway. My husband was driving about a minute away from her at the time, happily oblivious. I’m shaken up, but also feel in an impossible situation.

This occurred close to school, with a couple of friends, in daylight with people nearby. Her journey also includes much larger elements where she’s on her own and secluded. I’m really fucking angry and revolted too (huge understatement) that the school have the power to dictate the removal of a tool for use outside of school, compromising my child’s safety.

As a bare minimum, I want a brick phone allowed in school - turned off, handed in, confiscated if used or seen - I don’t care. I want them to find a way that the other 97% of schools do, so that my child has access to a phone, even if it’s just a brick phone, should she need it out of school.

They have lots of draconian rules, appear very rigid and authoritarian. I can grit my teeth on those. I cannot grit my teeth on this one. It’s a very large academy, gives the impression so far that “we are always right and totally trustworthy” and others will have it wrong or lie. Please help. How best to approach a school that seems terrified of giving an inch, (whilst it simultaneously encroaches the fuck and takes miles) to get an outcome that will make my child safer out of school.

If you’ve read this far, please help. I also believe from what I’ve seen so far that if I raise this, the school will frequently check my daughter’s bag. I am willing to now break the rules on this, but obviously can’t keep replacing mobiles and she shouldn’t have to be punished by school for it either.

I would report the incident to the police and get a crime reference number. I’d then meet with the school explain the incident and follow up the discussion in writing (email), bullet point and include the crime reference number and how having a phone could have changed the situation. (Phoning the police or an ambulance for example).

Always follow up a meeting in writing so you have a time stamped documented email trail. In this instance clearly highlight the safety issue caused by no brick mobile phone and the staff members responses. Ask why no pouches or other options were chosen? What do other schools use in your area?

Do any schools use this?
https://parentshield.co.uk/block-mobiles-during-school-hours/

My child doesn’t take a phone to school (secondary) however I don’t agree with a blanket ban. My biggest concern is them not being able to record an incident in school and the school denying the incident occurred. Too many schools are going into lock down in my county (masked men, knife, people scaling the fence) and it is clear the schools/gov would prefer to keep these incidents quiet. They can’t deny it if there is video footage. This enables parents to make informed decisions on a school.

I wouldn’t opt for a school with a blanket ban and I say that as someone who has a child that has never taken a phone to school.

And one used as a CGM or HA connector is exempt. So is completely irrelevant to this.

Children and adults with type 1 diabetes use their mobile phones to monitor their blood sugar and alert them when it gets too high or low. For some people a smartphone is literally life saving. Before this technology was available these children had to perform regular finger prick tests to check their blood sugar. Mobile phones provide constant monitoring, much better control and as a result reduce the risk of blindness, kidney failure and amputation. So yes, some people do need a mobile phone.

Love this. I hid my sons nokia brick phone in a packable rain coat for three years. Then the school allowed mobile phones. This is 12 years ago but regardless of when it was phones are so useful when our kids are commuting to school.

But why should the school dictate whether she gets to carry a phone on her journey to/from school (which, by banning them altogether they are)? People DO need phones these days. The world is not set up for people not to have phones like it was in the 90s with phone boxes on every street corner. I’m all for keeping kids off smartphones but I think if schools go too far like this there’s bound to be a backlash. Just allow brick phones and require them to be switched off all day at school. Then the child can still contact you if they need to on their journey home

Of course a phone makes a difference to your safety - group of kids get into fight with other group of kids in secluded area. One kid ends up getting stabbed. None of his friends have a phone so no one can call an ambulance. There’s no phone box nearby cos it’s not the 90s and it’s a secluded area so there’s no people nearby to ask. They can run to the nearest person/shop to get help but that could take 10-15 min, by which time the kid has lost so much blood he’s died. If they could have called for help immediately on a mobile he’d have a chance at survival

No teacher is going to chase a child down and snatch a phone.
no governing body would allow that in their Mobile phone policy.
just tell your child not to use it in school according to the rules

If a teacher is on a journey home and sees a child on a phone, they will “chase them down the street and snatch it out of their hand” as it shows they had a phone in school.

Yes because this totally happened didn’t it 🙄

Of course teachers don’t have their own children, partners, friends, family, date nights, hobbies etc - they just hang around school waiting to chase down students and snatch their phones from them 🤦‍♀️

You do realise like any other profession, teachers can’t wait to get home at the end of the day.
Half of them will have young kids that they need to collect by a certain time.

The school has no jurisdiction as to what pupils do with a phone on the way home from school. If this is written into official policy, it's a huge overstep on their part. If it were I'd just send them an email saying their policy is noted but please note that my DD is given permission by me to use her phone appropriately on the way home from school.

I assume the school give you a printed timetable or provide diaries so they can copy their timetable into them and don't require any tech usage for homework?

A few years ago DD's school in the late 2010s, before she went, got into trouble in the national press for insisting everyone buy an iPad for use in school.

When she was there (from 2020) they made all the kids do their homework on devices and having them install at least five different apps for the purpose.

This is an ostensibly wealthy area but where there is actually a huge disparity and many families who are not well-off.

We bought/built a PC for each DD but in 2020 many families did not have a device each for everyone in the house and no printer (we printed and laminated a timetable for DD2 as kids would regularly get in trouble for phone usage in the corridor, in spite of the timetable only being available on their phones unless you copied/printed it off/bought them a diary for the same). We were very IT literate but still had plenty of tech issues. It was a part time job on top of our FT job helping DD2 (with SEN) with homework (just getting access to even do it!)

Interesting now they are going back to homework in exercise books and provide a homework diary for the timetable and homework to be written into and handed in and marked. I wish they had when DD was there. One feature of the apps and homework being automatically marked was that there was two or three times the amount set than I had at school, straight away from Y7 also, and more than DD1 had in a superselective grammar. It was crazy.

I think you will need to change schools or consider home schooling . You can't realistically expect the school to make an exception for your daughter unless , possibly, you can get a medical diagnosis from her doctor that having access to a phone 24/7 is necessary for her mental health.

That is a false equivalency. YOU have decided a smartphone is an "adult" tool. I don't think it is, i think it is a tool. A smartphone doesn't have to have a browser or any social media apps and it will still be useful. You have also thrown the baby out with the bathwater as the OP is about no phones whatsoever. Given the number of payphones is reducing all the time, that's important too. Children don't have the same framework of available public phones and known local adults that they did fifty years ago.

There are plenty of towns with one gym with a swimming pool and no phone boxes.

People bank, pay in shops, shop, have to have one for employment purposes, play games, watch films, the list just goes on and on.

Many doctors now consult by phone, so if you only have a landline you'll be forced to sit in the house and wait while I'll be strolling round the park or in the gym I just used my phone to get into. I know which I'd choose.

What century do you think you are living in? 🤣

Thanks for the helpful replies.

To those of you who think there are some schools that don’t patrol, or who are so oversensitive they perceive it as a dig about teacher’s busyness, this school does do that. There was a member of staff at the bus stop ten minutes away from school when my husband drove past. They monitor blazers and phones under their behavioural policy, because that’s what’s highly important to them. That’s what matters. That’s their priority.

“We would also like to remind parents and carers that students who are seen using mobile phones on their journey to or from school by members of staff on duty will have their phones confiscated”

My husband was prohibited from doing a totally normal thing of texting her with an offer of a lift that she would have been able to see when she switched a phone on outside the gate. That simple, normal thing couldn’t happen though as her phone was at home as it wasn’t allowed. I don’t know whether she would have said yes or no. I won’t ever know. Neither could she call us, but still, adds to the resilience eh? Slow fucking clap.

She doesn’t use social media. If she did, she might be exposed to the sorts of people who would tell her how they have her best interests at heart, whilst mocking and questioning the validity or seriousness of the incident she’d just been involved in. They’d tell her to seek the help of strangers, rather than those she knows who do have her back. They’d tell her to make her own way home afterwards just to be more “resilient” rather than call someone, whilst continuing in their world where they spend half the day on social media talking about the dangers of making a phone call. Then again, I doubt she’d use Mumsnet. She’s an eleven year old girl ffs, with more compassion and integrity in her toenail than some of those on this thread.

The people who invented them also decided that they are not suitable for children and have said so numerous times?

Ok...but there are other ways to contact her or arrange lifts sans mobile.

The lift could be pre-arranged.
DH could have called the school and left a message.
Depending on layout, DH could have parked up and caught her attention as she walked out of school.

Besides, there's no guarantee she'd turn the phone on the second she leaves the school gate. She may well have started walking before turning it on.

And the teacher's snatching phones thing was because of the way you phrased it. You made it sound like teacher's on their way home could just take the kids phones. Patrols at busy bus stops are very normal outside busy secondary schools and the teachers would be enforcing behaviour. Often its because the bus company have had complaints about behaviour from members of the public so the school staff have to patrol.

Focus on the incident, thats the important aspect, not the lack of phone.

Actually thinking outside the box, is there a trusted person living near the school where your daughter could drop off and collect a phone before entering school premises? That way she wouldn't be breaking any rules. As a parent you should be encouraging her to comply with school rules, even if you personally don't agree with them. .

There was a member of staff at the bus stop ten minutes away from school when my husband drove past. They monitor blazers and phones under their behavioural policy, because that’s what’s highly important to them. That’s what matters. That’s their priority.

I would hope there are designated staff making sure the pupils are not acting like twats around members of the public.

They’re not chasing students down and snatching their phones though are they.

“We would also like to remind parents and carers that students who are seen using mobile phones on their journey to or from school by members of staff on duty will have their phones confiscated”

If it’s public transport - then they cannot request this.

If it’s school transport - then they can request this.

(Can you screenshot where it says this on the website).

“We would also like to remind parents and carers that students who are seen using mobile phones on their journey to or from school by members of staff on duty will have their phones confiscated”

This is illegal, they have no authority to do this whatsoever. Just get your daughter to refuse. Nothing will happen as they cannot remove phones in public, they’re not the bloody police.

Curious, but what is their policy for those who have digital bus passes on their phones?

Thanks @Theseventhmagpie i realised after a while and stopped engaging! I don’t really understand what they get out of being so stroppy/argumentative with internet strangers.

You don't like the school policy, so remove your child

Parents like you make my teacher friends' lives a misery. Every child is special, every child is an exception.

Unfortunately, the government is making it more and more difficult for schools to survive financially without joining a multi-academy trust. They also (whether academy or LA maintained) have to adhere to more and more statutory requirements with less and less resources. Schools are operating in a very difficult context that has been imposed upon them.

Surely this is a case of an authoritarian SLT or learning trust being a thorn in the side of teachers? They don't need to be this strict to comply with the law, they could use pouches or have a no see, no hear policy but instead they have chosen to go OTT and tried to restrict children in public outside of school hours.

People have given very good reasons for kids having phones on them eg bus passes, bullied kids and kids with diabetes. Do you not think those are good reasons? Do you not think children as young as 11 should have some means to call home if they are walking home alone or getting public transport, especially with winter daylight hours approaching?

No, I think - like others - people used to manage fine without phones. Diabetics and all. There's always a "what about." Schools have enough to worry about without all this exceptionalism.