Is it normal for school to prohibit using mobiles?

[LittleCloudy]

I am collecting my younger child from school. my other one attending another school but is walking home alone ( about 2 km). Theey finish same time so usually I am on my mobile with my older one ( she is little scared to walk alone but I can't be 2 places at same time) while collecting younger one. recently the school told me I'm not allowed using phone while waiting outside school and while waiting for my child. It's taking 10 minutes (as the teachers talking to parents etc). Can they really prohibit me from using it?

Not the norm at DD's primary.

When i was a kid i didn't have a phone in the 90s and hate the damn things and they are a big problem. I think people need to be aware of the radiation thats admitted from them along with the 4g and soon to be 5g technology it gamma radiation. Schools should be technology free.

@sneakypinky It's often a safeguarding measure to stop perverts taking photos or filming children on the sly posing as a parent.

No it's not...
It's more to do with kids running up to their parents excited to tell them about their day, and their parents not being interested because they're too busy arguing on Mumsnet
Or kids running across the road and their parents being totally oblivious

I think OP has left the thread.

At both my children's nursery and school there are signs saying 'put your phone away, greet your child with a smile' or similar!

Only this morning as we approached some traffic lights, just as the green Man appeared an ambulance with blue lights came down the road. A child of about 6 years old with two adults (presumably mum and dad who were both looking at phones) steps into the road in front of the oncoming ambulance - my heart goes into my mouth, she sees the ambulance and runs across the road. It's only once the ambulance has passed that 'mum' looks up to see the child has crossed and then shouts to tell her off! I couldn't believe neither of them explained you wait for blue light vehicles or checked where she was.

Phones don’t emit gamma radiation. We sometimes have complicated pickups at two different schools and with last minute changes of plans that might involve a decision as to whether to get on a school bus or not. The phones are vital but it’s a matter of a quick text usually. There is no way I would tolerate not being able to do that as otherwise it would put my own child
at risk of not being picked up promptly or worse stranded somewhere. In the case brought up here I would suggest explaining the problem to the school and trying to work something out. Keeping the phone in your pocket with a Bluetooth headpiece might do the trick otherwise. If the risk is photography and safeguarding that really should do the job.

Schools should be technology free.

Say what now? Schools are places of learning. A school without technology is a child-care silo.

MrsBert I read a review of a book about education a while back in the Economist which put forward the case that the education systems that produced the most enquiring minds were those with the least amount of tech in the classroom, amongst other things.

Keeping the phone in your pocket with a Bluetooth headpiece might do the trick otherwise. If the risk is photography and safeguarding that really should do the job.

That would be acceptable in the outside areas of our school. Sounds like a good work around to me.

It genuinely is the risk surrounding safeguarding that means we don’t allow mobiles to be seen on our site.