How to word a letter about mobile phones being used in the classroom ?

[mamatomany]

Apparently my 6 year olds year 2 teacher asks them to hang on a minute whilst she responds to a text
There was something on the radio about the case in Plymouth and I just casually said none of your teachers have mobiles do they ? Turns out all three have witnessed teachers using their phones whilst the children work during the lessons.
I feel this is extremely unprofessional and in light of events should have been stopped months ago.
I want to approach the head WWDY ?

I think we had that same filter when I worked in schools(reminiscing about the time when I wasn't allowed to google the word "canal"). The staffroom of the private day nursery doesn't have it though.

Am I a member of a cult?

Our school email filters out the use of the word 'oral' in emails. Organising speaking exams is a fine art.

It's a skill, isn't it, getting round the hysterical nannying that screws up perfectly normal requests and makes everything a euphemistical journey into the unknown.

Breath taking arrogance of some alleged teachers, we are more intelligent so do not question us, my child is more important than the ones i'm paid to look after, parents are cretins.

It's been eye opening for sure.

A colleague of mine made a beautiful powerpoint with big pictures of people doing different jobs to show to her year 7s. The children realised before her, when she showed it on the big whiteboard in front of the whole class, that the picture wasn't quite what she thought it was. It was... umm... a bull.

Anyway, sorry if I was taking the piss Mama, and sorry for going off on a tangeant, but I really think you don't need to worry. :)

I have seen none of that (apart from the my child is more important .. .which is of course true and doesn't make anyone a bad teacher). Are you sure you don't have issues with paranoia in general?

And seriously, you will damage your children if you bring them up in an evironment where they learn to fear everyone and everything.

Missed a bit in anecdote. Should have been a farmer milking a cow, not a bull. And it wasn't milk, IYSWIM.

Mamatomany
I think that most of the teachers have been very patient and have explained their pov several times despite you not taking on board what we have been saying.

Who said parents are cretins?

Isn't this Mum snet?

Or that they are more intelligent? Than whom?

Of course your own child is more important to you than the ones you look after in your day job.

'Breath taking arrogance of some alleged teachers, we are more intelligent so do not question us, my child is more important than the ones i'm paid to look after, parents are cretins.'

Do you often paraphrase, misquote and misinterpret things?
Would you feel better if we were alleged teachers?

mamatomany I agree that a teacher should not be texting etc during lessons - unless maybe in a dire emergency.

I work in a school and would never use my mobile during lessons. I have it with me tho, on silent, and tend to check it at the end of a lesson in case there are any messages about my DC.

It's just a phone, btw, no camera.

But really, tosuggest they be banned seems bizarre. TBH I think it's a bit odd to ban phones in nurseries - it doesn't seem to me in any way to address the issues about the paedophile case you are referring to (which as I understand it were more to do with faults withthe nursery's recruitment policy and a culture of staff not telling what they knew).

Agree with all those who say there are cameras all over in schools. Are yr DC excluded from pix at school then? And why, if so?

I know this is a post on primary schools but I work in a senior school and will often have my mobile hidden in my bag or pocket.

Not so I can text my friends, arrange dental appts or a night out etc but for any emergency that might arise. My school is based on a very big campus and my childrens school twice in the past have left messages with the reception that one child is ill or had an accident and its never got to me! (although a room change to a computer suite did confuse the receptionist! for one of the calls!)

However I have had occasion where I've needed to call the SMT to come and remove a violent pupil quickly and when a girl fainted last year, hitting her head on corner of desk, an ambulance was called immediately (there was a lot of blood - although turned out to be small cut but she remained unconscious for quite a while even after ambulance had arrived) and reception was called straight after 999.

If your childrens teacher is texting constantly then yes there is a reason to communicate your upset with the school but really I don't think anyone would take your concerns of paedophiles and photography seriously. My school is covered by CCTV, lots of pupils and teachers have to use school cameras for projects, evaluations etc and pupils bring in phones (although they are handed in at start of day)

As staff, we have to protect ourselves as well as the children and 1:1 sessions have had to cease (for our safety too)and interviews, mentoring etc are now all done with another adult present too. Its a very sad state of affairs.

I can understand that some nurseries might start a ban on mobiles while staff work, These are very young children who are unable to vocalise what they have done at nursery all day, or who has been with them. They are often still in nappies or being potty trained which might result in accidents and so they are far more vulnerable.

I am sorry to hear that you had a problem with a carer in the past and I hope your children are all ok now. But please don't assume that all teachers, carers, nursery nurses etc are working in schools and nurseries with ulterior motives. these individuals who partook in this terrible crime were very sick individuals but most of us are in the job because we love to teach and we love the satisfaction we get from our jobs.

I'm supply. My phone stays on, on silent from the minute I get out of the car, and only ever comes out of my pocket if I need to check the time and aren't sure my watch is right, or if I get one of those delightful lessons left where none of the school set of stopwatches are working - in which case the phone, the ipod, anything with a timer on gets lent out to groups of kids.

I'm supply - I'm not a permanent staff member so I'm not contactable via a schools switchboard. Quite often if I get a booking in for me my agency will chuck a message or text and expect me to return it within about 10 minutes of school ending or over a lunchbreak or I will lose the booking. People know to contact me during school hours via text or email that I'll return during breaktimes - it's how I run my tutoring work, it's how I run my supply work. I'm not going to lose half of my potential income being unable to return calls during breaktimes to pander to this absolutely ridiculous hysteria that's going around.

Incidentally - my younger brother went to the secondary school that went in the news for being the first to try this blanket ban on camera phone mobiles. I believe it lasted till October when it was quietly reduced to the more sensible option of "no one has them out during lessons".

You're being ridiculous. Schools are full of cameras, much of foundation stage practice involves taking photographs to record children's achievements, lots of schools use cameras further up the school for similar with drama and collaborative projects... do you want to ban all of those as well? The school sets of laptops, the laptops given to teachers for school use.... many of those have integrated cameras in as well these days - do you want to ban those? Children go out onto the playground which often adjoins a road - do you want the playground surrounded in a great big black tent in case someone walks past on the street with a camera phone. Shall we just put all children in burkas?

The texting is the real issue - the hysteria over camera phones is, being quite frank, insulting to all teachers and downright ridiculous.

I'd be walking away from any school I showed up to who demanded I turned my phone in at the office at the start of the day to be honest - I rely on it being there for me to return calls in order to remain financially solvent.

Just to add to the debate I turned off my phone one day before a lesson and when I turned it back on afterwards I had had a text from my dd1's school asking that we all pick up the children asap as the power had gone.

Luckily my friend is a star and had collected her for me.

Now I keep my phone on me at all times and if I get a text/email I will check it when the class are busy doign something else, and where they can't see me, and only read it if it's from school or dd2's nursery.
I confiscated 6 mobiles during one lesson today, 2 of which were on FB when I took them. I wouldn't say teachers using phones is the biggest issue re phones tbh.

I agree with you Ilythia I confiscated one from a Yr 8 girl today as it rang during my lesson and she answered it! She then got all arsey with me every time she saw me for the rest of the day claiming variously that
a) it wasn't her fault that her friend phoned her during a lesson
b) it was her mum who'd phoned her and she had to have her phone back so she could call her mum to say sorry for hanging up
c) it wasn't her phone, and she had to have it back straight away to return it to the person she borrowed it from

Many teachers text parents. How do you know thid was not the case?

EvilTwins I think they call that a "layered defence". Send her to law school, she's a natural! :o

Did you not have the 'but it's my calculator' defence to contend with? Or what about 'my (random family member/dog/neighbour) is really ill and I need to answer in case they are dead, and I wouldn't know, and it would be all your fault miss.'?

I always used to answer pupils's phones if they rang in lessons. Spoke to many a confused parent/older boyfriend/ child in other class