Smartphone at school - inappropriate content sharing

[Sagarmatha]

This is a question I'd appreciate help answering.

A child aged 12 to 16 shares sexual or other inappropriate content, eg, video of beheading or torture with another child while on school premises because the school allows smartphones at school.

The recipient does not own a smartphone and comes home traumatised and discloses all to his or her parents.

What is the legal position here?

Given the school's requirement to safeguard all children, could the parents take legal action against the school?

Obviously this is a safeguarding issue for both children involved but I don't see it as a safeguarding breach this would mean the school has breached it's own policy or failed to adhere to government safeguarding. As a previous posters said there would be a need for the school to be shown to have been negligent in some way.

Some schools still allow pupils to use phones at break and lunch although many ban their use in the premises entirely. This does not mean that pupils are not using them under desks/ hidden in their bags at break and lunch on the playground etc.

Many many parents will be unsupportive of confiscating phones and insist they are needed for safeguarding children on the way home etc so phones switched off in bags being permitted is pretty common.

Banning phones outright would most likely not prevent this kind of incident occurring but you could argue it might make it less likely. Then again you could have a child bring extremist literature or porn mags stolen from parents / older siblings instead . Are we to start suing schools for not preventing this too?

Surely the "recipient" child didn't have to watch if they felt the content was upsetting?

I am a lawyer.

Yes the horse has bolted. But if you don't report it no action can be taken. By reporting it sends a serious message to the rest of the student body that they can get criminal records from distribution of porn to minors and raises awareness amongst the parents and children.

Why don't you want to be the parent that reports it? Perhaps other parents are doing the same and waiting for someone else to. Then nothing happens. There is no "claim" against the school though. Indeed they don't even know about it whereas you do but don't want to take any action about it.

Some schools in the UK have indeed banned use of phones and/or collect them in.

Italy hasn't banned smartphones in schools.

It's been suggested and schools and teachers fell on the floor laughing at how that would ever be enforced.

Hilarious.
That changed in April.

I'm a teacher in a state school in Puglia.
Phones have not been banned.
The Education Minister made a big speech about banning them and wrote a letter to HTs encouraging judicious use of them in the classroom, but that's all.

I don’t see why you would want to take legal action with this. I’m not entirely sure what a lawyer will suggest to you.

If my child came home upset then I would contact the school and go down the safe guarding route.

If the child has accessed an inappropriate video using their own mobile data then there’s only so much the school can do. Even a blanket ban on phones won’t work as children/ teenagers will still bring them in and hide them.

I work in a school where they are "banned".

Kids still bring them in, parents will back them up. There is literally nothing we can do to stop them. We can attempt to confiscate but if a student totally refuses, what do you do? We phone parents and they say "well X needs it to get home". You can't send the child home (illegal exclusion).

I think your interpretation of banned meaning 'there definitely won't be any phones in school' is wrong.

@Sagarmatha well then don't call the police! The police don't need to sort out everything where someone gets upset.

The kids are 11+ we were watching the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq at that age, would it be any different if they showed the same video in a park?

The law hasn't caught up with the internet and likely never will, it changes too quick. I was the kid that taught half the school to use web based proxies to access MySpace on the school network, those were the days. DS is 10 and I'm pretty sure he could hide his browsing history well enough that you would be wasting your time. He was using a VPN earlier to watch a US show. If you banned him from having a phone it would be back to using an iPod etc which can also display video.

I would just educate your kids about the realities of the world and that's it's okay to say you don't want to watch something.

Interesting 'ban smart phones' bandwagon middle class parents are currently jumping on.

There are social media groups with hundreds of parents and teachers and other ransomers discussing the perils of high school pupils using phones. Some are in fact sharing screenshots and other content taken from their teenagers phones, thus violating the individuals' privacy and causing safeguarding issues.

Interestingly they are moaning about smart phones and social media- using their smart phones and social media.

Of course, as is the nature of such online groups, users work themselves into a frenzy, the loud and ignorant participants dominate and no sensible and nuanced discussion can really take place, oh the irony.

I am all for having phones out of sight, ideally handed in during school hours. But that's not sufficient. Schools need to include not sharing any offensive (racist, bigoted etc), violent or sexual content in whatever format, not just using phones. All schools have computers in fact most now hand out iPads to their students. It's a bit futile to ban smart phones but expect students to use their iPad for educational activities as it fosters screen addition and enables students to access inappropriate content. Brick phones are also addictive although perhaps to a lesser extent.

I advise the OP to campaign for a personal device free school and have a extended behaviour policy as well proactively creating a culture that teaches pupils responsible, safe and worthwhile behaviour online as well as offline.

Do not be tempted to wrap your dc in cotton wool, OP. Teach them to not watch stuff like that, teach them to say no and walk away, encourage them to have sound values around internet use. We cannot put the genie back in the bottle, but we can try to a culture that empowers young people to be as educated as they can be and have safe behaviours just as you'd want them to have in real / offline life.

The ban smartphones camping is simplistic and kind of just delays the problem. Away with the phones at school for sure but remember there are other devises at school that give kids internet access to look up and share or show inappropriate content. Otherwise just heavily control your dc's online behaviour, smart phone or not.

At my dcs school, they sometimes were asked to use their mobile phones in lessons, to use the kahoot voting app, to read qr codes in books.Apart from that they asked students to phone home if the school was ever closing early for snow etc

It's not a bandwagon. It's the guidance that was issued to all schools in February by the government.

I teach my children what to walk away from and what to not engage with. However, when a child's school allows smartphones in class and during break and lunchtime, i object because it's toxic and it is detracting from what schools are meant to do - educate and protect.

I teach my children what to walk away from and what to not engage with. However, when a child's school allows smartphones in class and during break and lunchtime, i object because it's toxic and it is detracting from what schools are meant to do - educate and protect.

I agree with this and 100% support a phone ban in schools but I also think it's possible for 12 year olds to gradually learn to manage a smart phone with tight safety setting and strict parental supervision - outside of school. Keep it away from primary school pupils but also don't let them play games and watch addictive content and games on the family TV. It's just not as simple as banning smart phones the issues are wider and more complex. Most secondary schools use iPads in lessons and for homework. It's easy to access harmful content on these educational devices. I'm in two minds whether I would like schools to abandon the iPad scheme.

@Sagarmatha why don't you explain first how this banning would look like and what the impact on behaviours like in your OP would be?

I don't agree on the policing point. Lots of schools have announced an outright ban recently incidentally.

Unless they search every child's bag eaxh morning, I doubt it's a very effective ban.

OP, you can't make the school ban phones.

If you read the Gov guidelines on this published in Feb, it's all in there.

Schools that are just ignoring it are behind the curve.

Impact on behaviours - surely that's obvious??

More social interaction
More physical play
Less online and cyberbullying
Fewer issues with inappropriate content being shared
Fewer safe guarding issues
No distraction

I could go on.

That's where we are heading.

Have a read

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65cf5f2a4239310011b7b916/Mobile_phones_in_schools_guidance.pdf

Option a is optimum obviously.

Just returning to my op, which was theoretical.

If you look at the new Ofsted inspection criteria around wellbeing, and also read the gov guidance on tech standards in schools, there is a case for holding a school accountable for allowing inappropriate content to be shared with other children while on their premises.

www.gov.uk/guidance/meeting-digital-and-technology-standards-in-schools-and-colleges/filtering-and-monitoring-standards-for-schools-and-colleges

Option A still wouldn't stop kids hiding a phone in their bag if they were that way inclined, so unless there's a bag check every morning , it's pretty similar as all the others and of course there would be concessions made for medical reasons. I suspect it would be pretty unpopular as well.