Smartphone free at Year 7?

[CautiousOptimist]

I’ve been following the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign with interest, although personally I didn’t write to my MP because I am happy with my 13 and 11 year olds having smartphones mainly for useful / practical / educational use and monitor their use.

I have done my research and understand the reasons but personally with a Yr 8 and a Yr 6 making their own way to school I want them to have phones. Neither has social media and won’t for the foreseeable. We strictly limit YouTube at home, are careful about age ratings for games etc.

Anyway… secondary schools in our area are planning to be Smartphone Free from Year 7 from September.

Am I alone in seeing issues with and being against this?

My Yr 8 child gets homework set on an app. They use apps for German, French and Geography homework. He regularly does this on his bus journey. Sometimes they use phone cameras in Art lessons. They also get messages from teachers on Teams many times a week, messages about extra curriculars etc.

I’m happy with all this and think phones are incredibly useful. But surely the schools cannot continue working like this while being Smartphone-free from Year 7?

Does anyone have a secondary school which is already Smartphone free? If so, please can you tell me what happens when children commute a long way for school and their parents want them to have a phone for bus apps etc? Do phones get turned off and put in bags as they enter the school gates? Or are they confiscated and children given sanctions for having a phone at all? I would love to know how this is going to work, obviously the tide is turning!

Do you mean they aren't allowed to bring them to school? Or aren't allowed to use them in school?

It’s not clear to me yet what it’s going to mean, that’s what I’m trying to find out if anyone else’s secondary schools are smartphone-free.
To me smartphone-free means they’re not allowed on site at all, but I would have issues with that as my son travels quite a long way to get there and I want him to have a phone with him.

I'm a for schools not being allowed to use mobiles within school itself. They shouldn't be expecting pupils to have them to enable them to access lessons like that.

I don't support schools banning the children having phones for the journey to and from school. Preferably it should be a dumb phone, but we live in a world enhanced (or restricted) by technology.

At my school all phones (of any type) must be switched off and in bags. They are not allowed to use them in lessons - teachers can book sets of laptops if they need tech in lessons.
The school my daughter will go to says no phones on site but I have no idea how they police that any further than we police keeping them in bags unless they do random stop & search!

At my son's school they put their phones in a YODL pouch on the way in, which is sealed and in their bags until they are unlocked on the way out.
So all the chn still have their phones for the journey but can't access them at all during the school day. It's great!

No-one here can tell you how your school will implement such a ban, I'm afraid. But if they're expecting kids to use Teams during the day and take photos during art lessons then obviously they'll have to make provision, either by not doing that any longer, or by giving them access to other devices.

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated. Is it unusual then for Yr 7 homework to be set on apps? And for PE teachers to be putting info about sports practices for example on Teams?

Online homework is reasonably common.
Messages for that day being on Teams not normal. The day before maybe. I got notifications when my DDs (Yr8 and 10) get Google classroom messages and they are never for that day.

In our secondary school, phones are mandatory for children who make their own way to school (very, very rural, school isn’t anywhere close to anything either - its a bus + train , or parents bringing/collecting).
They hand them in at reception in the morning and collect in the afternoon.
There are some kids with basic phones, but most have smartphones to be able to navigate bus/train delays. The ones with basic phones completely rely on their friends with smartphones to get home - not great!

Not in my experience, most everything is on teams or another app.

The school my DD will hopefully go to have a strict policy. No phone with Internet access or cameras allowed on site. If found, it is confiscated, 1 hour detention and parents have to pick it up from school. They are allowed dumb phones. I am broadly in favour of it but not having the Internet to check bus/trains is a downside. I imagine she will call me if she needs travel information.

My grandson in year 7 seems to do all his homework on an app.

Hopefully she doesn’t need to go via any biggish stations - having to call for the daily delay/platform alteration/connection issues would be a nightmare! We’ve had 12 delay repay claims since christmas (i.e. delay iver 30 minutes), and there is often no phone connection on trains (there is free wifi!)

I don't understand why they would have such a policy. My grandson has a long bus journey to school and his phone has been very useful when his bus hasn't turned up to track if it is coming etc. Phones have to be turned off and away in bags while at school, I think that's enough. But banning them completely from school is unnecessary.

This is how it’s done in both my DCs’ schools (both year 7). The teachers are constantly sending Teams messages and posting homework on there.

It is at my kids school. Homework done on laptops. Phones handed in every morning. I'm in favour of strict bans.

How did people survive without them?! 🙄

Ours is smartphone free. It’s great in my opinion. Until Y11, no smartphones in school at all. Brick phones allowed to be brought to school, but should be handed in at the start of the school day. Y11-13 can have smartphones but they are not to be used in lessons or around school. Sanctions are issued if pupils are caught breaking the rules. If pupils need to contact home, they are allowed to use school land lines. I will say though that a lot of the pupils are boarders, and school issues everyone with laptops for school work.

Really interesting replies, thanks.

We will of course just need to get used to whatever new policies are brought in, just as we all got used to smartphones so quickly in the first place.

Personally I’d be happy with smartphones off and in bags for the school day, confiscated if they’re seen using them, but I don’t see the need for it to go further than that. I don’t want my 11 year old commuting for an hour with a paper bus timetable and hope, like it’s the 90s. I’d rather he learnt to use a phone as a tool for the things it’s brilliantly useful for - transport, keeping in touch with me, homework, research, fun educational apps like Wordle and TimeGuessr - and not using it for dangerous social media and stupid ai videos. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, in my opinion.

I haven't questioned the school on it. I presume the reason is to stop children hiding in the toilets and turning their phone on. A blanket 'not on the premises' prevents any arguments.

@QuickBlueKoala DD would have to get 1 bus. It's in suburban London where some (but not all) bus stops have screens showing the bus times. I haven't yet investigated whether that is the case for the stops she would use. I don't know if you can still text for bus times?! Some kids travel fair distances though, so I imagine some have more complicated journeys. To me, a major pro of smartphones is helping navigate journeys. I have memories of standing in the rain hoping for a bus to turn up.

I'm accepting of the policy though on a cost/benefit level. I don't think my 10yo would benefit from having a Smartphone. I'd like to hold off a few years but don't want her to be isolated socially. I hope with a strict policy, more of the year 7 & 8s will just have dumb phones, although I'm sure many will have 2 phones.

We found that the use of a smartphone as a tool (plus the ban of having it out at school!) really keeps things in perspective. There are social media related dramas in school, but weirdly never in the group of kids using them to commute (about 25% of the kids - the rest gets collected from/brought to school). They seem to have learned that a smartphone is a tool necessary to get home in a reasonable amount of time, and us parents have made sure their phones are sufficiently locked down!

My sons school they are allowed phones, they can be on but must be on silent and stay in their bag all day. If they are caught using them there are sanctions, first time is a negative point and a warning and phone is confiscated. Then after that its goes from break detention, lunch, after school etc..... if one particular child is a problem with a phone they must surrender it to the office when they arrive at school.
My friends daughters school they can take a phone but every child has to surrender their phone to their form tutor at first register then collect it at the end of day. Both these systems allow children to have a phone before and after school for bus/walk home.

No smartphones in our school, I wasn’t sure at the beginning but it works for my kids. They text or phone each other, school messages and homework is on teams which they access at home on the laptop. Because all the kids are in the same boat they’ve all just accepted it

I doubt it will be a case of no phones allowed on site. In any case, large proportion of kids will still use their phones frequently during the school day and only the few blatant ones will ever get caught. Desire to use phones is the main cause of excessive asking to go to the toilet in lessons. They will also use them during unsupervised lunch and break times and they are pretty good at looking at them surreptitiously in some lessons. It's naïve to think that such addicted behaviour can be stopped by a ban with insufficient ability to enforce it. Even if it were a total ban on site, many would still bring them in if there weren't daily bag checks.

one of the benefits of a rural location - there is no mobile phone coverage at school. There is wifi on busses (mostly) and trains though
They still have to hand in phones in the morning/evening