Analogue watches only

[PersilOrAriel]

I’ve just had a text message to say that from Tuesday only analogue watches will be allowed in school. No explanation or further information given.

My DD is upset, she has a Fitbit Alta and loves to track her steps. Phones not allowed in school, so she can’t use any of the messages alert functions at school.

What are your views on this?

My children are not old enough for phones etc so I am not sure about why message alert functions would be useful...
however, I am in agreement with the school.

No gadgets, distractions and no need for children to be counting their steps.

Wonder if they just don’t want to be policing fitbits that look like smart watches etc.
I think there would be kids who would struggle to read an analogue watch.

I suspect that it makes the policing of smart watches easier.

How old is your DD? If at primary school then I can sort of understand, because it is a good idea for kids to begin telling the time with analogue before learning digital, I think.

My DD3 is 15 and has a firing. She likes to track her steps throughout the day, including at school. Phones have to be kept turned off an in bags at school and are confiscated if seen. They don't seem bothered about fitbits, so far. Nothing said anyway.

Watches seem to be coming back into fashion now that mobiles are being banned in schools. The kids at mine seem to be split between fitbits and overly elaborate analogue ones.

I see no reason why children should not count their steps if they want to. DD likes knowing roughly how far she walks on an average day around school, especially when she has PE.

Thanks to everyone for their views. Good to hear other viewpoints.

When teaching, we had issues with fitbits etc that vibrated or shook when inactive. Imagine 10 children who all feel they need to stand up midway through a lesson because of sitting down for too long. Some beep too.

Then there is often the “you can wear it today to see how many steps you do” and another child feels left out because they couldn’t wear it, so a greater pester power with children begging for items some parents will struggle to afford or say no to.

It would be the message that the rules change next week, drop everything and jump to it please that fucked me off to be honest. Announce it now for September or after the half term, give people a chance to get a new watch sorted out and fine... but a "ditch the watch or go get another this weekend" is just goalpost shifty annoying.

Can understand the fitbit thing - they've replaced watches for a lot of people (I used one basically just as a watch for a while while my proper watch was in being repaired again - it's got all new fucking innards now so had better not break down again for the amount I've spent repairing the bloody thing which has sentimental value I could have bought a top of the range fitbit) but that'll be jumped on on here as "in our day we tied a potato around our wrist and were glad of it - kids these days don't need anything else."

I think they are trying to minimize distractions. It sounds like a good thing to me. All these gadgets ringing and bleeping sounds like a nightmare for teachers.

Hah every teacher in the kids' school has a flipping fitbit on their wrist! Was on a school trip the other week and all the tapping about three times to wake the screen up and get it to show the time to work out what time was was amusing me somewhat no end!

Makes sense. It's hard to distinguish between a fitbit type device and true smart watch unless you're tech savvy and keeping informed of the market.

Given that we're entering exam season and smart watches are basically phones on your wrist it makes sense to stop them being used routinely by students ASAP.

My ancient smart watch (5 years and counting) can access documents and has it's own photo gallery. Straight off I can think why that's a bad idea for lessons and distractions let alone exams.

Possibly because children can't tell the time unless it's in a digital format?

How old is she? There is a move to ban them from school because they are not allowed in exam rooms under JPQ guidance. If she is entering into her exam season it may be why they are not be allowed to wear them.

Organisations which want to exert authority should, in my opinion, justify any such exertions. Rather than just imposing a new restriction, they should explain why it is being imposed. It does children good to challenge such authority.

My DD is in year 6, but the school runs from nursery to year 11. No mention whether infants/juniors/seniors are included, so I’m assuming it’s for everyone. Apologies for the drip feed, but new head started after Easter, and I wonder if this is her making her mark.

As Grimsqueaker says, it’s the lack of notice that’s annoying me more than anything. We’re away for bank holiday weekend in a little seaside village and buying a watch for her is the last thing I want to do, we want to be doing family stuff, not searching for the nearest Argos which is probably 50 miles away.

September would have been fine. I’m not going to be “that parent” who complains, but just a bit annoyed. Thanks again to all who commented.

But you don't need to find her a watch this weekend. She'll be fine for a few days without a watch. There are lots of clocks in school. I can see it's annoying timing though.

No reason why a child needs a watch in school at all, there are clocks in every classroom.

Very good idea to restrict it to analogue watches (if you feel you even need one), digital watches are now just another internet enabled electronic device to distract children and cause safe guarding issues.

Children should not be obsessed with how many steps they take a day, they need to unplug from the internet and learn when at school.

In a lot of ways it makes sense as smart watches can't be worn in exams so it can be quite stressful for schools to make sure students realise not to wear then for the exams, that is harder when they are used to wearing them day to day. I was worried I would forget to take mine of for my university exams. That said, you can get analogue style smart watches.

My dd wears an analogue watch to school (it isn;t rules but she likes them), she has amzn.eu/6TUcYzz because it is fairly cheap but waterproof unlike many analogues.

Completely pointless IMO. Digital watches don't affect children's learning. The school should be focusing on things that do.

Learning to tell the time with an analogue watch is perfectly normal. I don't see why rushing out to buy a new watch is necessary though. So they can't wear fit bit/smart watch, don't wear one. There's always a reason that schools do these things it's just frustrating that they are seen as the opposition in most cases!

I think it's a great idea to ban digital watches. I only ever wore digital as a child and really struggled to learn to correctly tell the time because I just didn't practice enough. I now only wear analogue as I do think it makes you lazy.

I even had a child at work (I'm a TA) ask what the point of learning analogue was as she always wore her digital watch.

So yes , making kids wear a "proper" watch is very beneficial imho.

I have a fit bit and you can change the settings so the watch appears as either a Typical clock face or as a digital clock. Is that one of at round it?

Do primary school kids really need a watch in school anyway? Maybe for secondary if you have to catch a bus or something.