Concerns about secondary school - DD just started yr7

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I could do with some advice/guidance. My DD started year 7 in secondary school two weeks ago and i'm going into school later this week to air some concerns.

My DD has settled well and really enjoying herself on the whole. Some will recognise me as the mum of a child offered a grammar school place which was then withdrawn 7 days later (investigation still ongoing...). So to have her settling in well is fantastic :)

Anyway, these are my concerns/worries:

1. Mobile phone policy: no phones allowed. If seen in school they are confiscated, to be collected only by parents. If found a second time, their bags will be searched.

1. The children have no lockers or cloakroom and have to carry everything around with them. There is nowhere to leave anything.

1. So - if they have a coat with them they are not allowed to hang them on the back of their chairs, they must put them on the floor.

1. Lunchtimes: these are half an hour (the school day ends at 3pm). They have 20 mins to eat, then have to sit in silence and read for 10 mins.

I won't say (at this point) what i think of those - because I'd like to hear what others think, and whether the school is breaching any rules/regulations, etc

Many thanks is advance!

Fairly standard in the school I work in. Our lunch break is 40 mins. Schools do it to reduce behaviour issues. A few years ago someone showed that if you only give them enough time to eat and go to the toilet then they don't have time to riot. Not saying I agree with it, as a teacher I'd like a bit longer!

As to coats on chairs, winter coats hung on chairs drag on floor. I trip over them, much more so than bags. So I expect that is it. Hardly any of them wear coats now anyway.

Lockers at our school- problem is if they go to them between lessons they are really late, at break means you have to let them into building, and they get vandalised and take up masses of space.

Bag searching is probably just in there to let you know that bags can be searched. Which is perfectly allowed, although in practice, I don't know any teachers that actually want to search kids' bags.

If a kid had a phone out, shoved it in their bag, then denied they had one, that would be the situation where a bag search was appropriate. If your DD never has a phone out, it will never come up.

As others have said they all sound pretty usual other than the silent reading.

I'd be concerned about cookery stuff being carried all day though. That's how it was done in 'my day' but ds's school has huge fridges in which they put their ingredients at the start of the day and from which they collect their 'creations' at the end of the day (with a few exceptions ie bread which is still kept in food tech but not in the fridge). I would have thought all schools would have to do this to comply with food safety rules these days.

No - they don't not wear coats because there is nowhere to out them. They don't wear coats because they don't wear coats! There are loads of threads on here about it. If you are lucky they will wear a white t shirt under their uniform and the school jumper. If you are unlucky they will put a hoodie under their blazer and get it confiscated. But generally they just wear their uniform and no coat.

If you go in you might get a locker for your dd. but she might not use it, whatever you say!

DS1 used to have cooking, pe and his guitar lesson on the same day. When he got off the bus he took his guitar to the music room (and pi led it up at the end of the day), took his cookery stuff to the food room. Slung his pe kit over his shoulder.

You will also find the majority of kids don't care about being cold, they would rather be cold than wear a coat.

We have a lot of yr7 parents ringing to say their child has forgotten to pick up their planner from xyz classroom and can someone go find it... Err no!

Tis big school now, they need to be responsible for themselves.

1. Mobile phone policy: no phones allowed. If seen in school they are confiscated, to be collected only by parents. If found a second time, their bags will be searched. as others have said: standard. However one of the things I like about dd1's school is that they are allowed as long as not seen/heard inside. Actually I've heard worse. Another local school confiscates until July. Great for the parent who finds their kid has "borrowed" theirs for the day on a monthly contract and the school will not give it up.

1. The children have no lockers or cloakroom and have to carry everything around with them. There is nowhere to leave anything.

Check that one. We didn't know until about a month into year 7 when we got a note asking us if they wanted one. They're often so far apart in a big school they can be fairly useless anyway

1. So - if they have a coat with them they are not allowed to hang them on the back of their chairs, they must put them on the floor. Most secondary age don't take coats until it's freezing, so it may be less of a concern than you think.

1. Lunchtimes: these are half an hour (the school day ends at 3pm). They have 20 mins to eat, then have to sit in silence and read for 10 mins.

Dd1's school gives them half an hour, which is a rush. But sit in silence and read???? I wouldn't like to be the person supervising that for the year 11s! Actually dd1 would love that, as she's not the most sociable person. But lunch is a time when they should be making friends etc. so I would have thought an important social time, particuarly for those who know few people. Are you sure that isn't wet play?

My non locker child puts his PE kit in his back pack and takes his instrument straight to the music room in the morning. Same with cooking ingredients.

I don't know what he does with his coat- Ill ask him tonight.

My locker child doesn't actually use hers much, because she'll probably miss her bus if she has to yomp across the school and back at the end of the day.

Don"t think it's a grammar/non grammar thing- I have one in each.

Good luck with getting her to wear walking boots, by the way..........

My kids school has half hour for lunch, which is at one of 3 times, so staggered so whole school gets time to eat. They then have a half hour 2nd break when some clubs run or they can chat (or go to canteen and have 2nd lunch or ice lollies in the summer). School finishes at 3 but hundreds of after school clubs and a late bus if parent can't pick up.
Phones must be off and not seen.
I didn't realise teenagers had coats ! None of mine ever wore one even when snowing.
I can't understand how you would do silent reading at lunch as surely they eat in a hall and then leave.
Hope your DD is enjoying schook.

Curlew at walking boots. I thought the same!

Johnny - most kids don't want to wear coats. Some do, you know. Especially those with physical conditions which make them feel the cold. Schools don't care though. It took us years for DD1's school to fully appreciate the issues she has with regulating her body temperature.

kids where I am wear coats, rather stylishly

What are you going to say to the school, OP? Do you have other concerns as well? Because I think you might be wasting your time going in to talk about the things you have detailed. Lockers are incredibly expensive, and take up huge amounts of space- I don,t think you are going to change any minds there.

It would be interesting to know about the 10 minutes silent reading thing- is it just for year 7s?

On musical instruments - at both DD1's and DS's schools instruments have to be stowed in the music room/block in a designated area as soon as the kids arrive at school. Otherwise the insurance isn't valid.

Curlew - if we have a winter like the one we had last year we are considering going in to bat for DD1 to have the right to wear boots to school and keep a pair of acceptable to the school shoes there. She has quite a long walk from the bus to the school, and if it is slppery, with her existing problems.......we (and the school, finally) are doing everything we can to minimise further injury risk. Not stupid things, not mollycoddling, just the sort of things that a sensible adult with her issues (eg ME) would do. And that most definitely includes wearing the right footwear for the weather. It's not just the injury risk either - she is almost always carrying multiple instruments plus her iPad for lessons (she does everything on that now, no more handwriting ever again).

People might well mock her, but they mock her when she goes arse over tit too. IT's her life. She's used to it. Better to be mocked without a sore arse or worse, and with warm dry feet.

At my kids' schools, if the weather is bad enough for them to need to wear more sturdy footwear to school, they're allowed to keep them on in school. So no worries about lugging your walking boots (sorry, but I laughed too) around.

Is she your PFB by any chance OP?

Assuming as others have said that mobile phones are allowed but have to be off and out of sight.

First 3 are normal.

Lunch time is a bit short, the silent reading is likely to be just before afternoon registration.

I think there are more important things to be concerned about tbh, and going in to school on these is OTT. Perhaps instead either check with other parents or if you really must, email the tutor about (4).

"What if child has PE and cooking, for instance, in one day? And musical instrument?"

My dd's school has an instrument store in the music department, they don't carry them around. It was a few weeks into Y7 before she discovered this, however.

On PE days dd dresses (as far as possible and as much as she can tolerate) in stuff she can wear for PE. They don't get much time to change, so it's just easier.

Umm, I think some of these sound odd. Why would you teach teenagers to put things on the floor not hang them up? It is all very well to say most teens don't wear coats but some do - and my children have had to wear walking boots to school in snow and then store or carry them all day.

Has the school had a discipline problem and is cracking down in bootcamp style? That would fit with the coat thing (be more obvious if you were getting stuff out of it in a lesson) and the lunchtime thing.

The locker thing I know is fairly normal and kids in schools with no lockers do seem to find ways and means....the phone thing also fairly normal at the strict end of things, although personally I think schools will need to rethink this now there are so few public phones, and perhaps invest in some public ones on site that the school smart card or whatever can be used on, or find a way for kids to bring their mobiles in. As someone else said, a lot of activities now rely on them.

I am glad she is enjoying herself - I remember your other thread. Is she giving you more jolly details as well?

"Another local school confiscates until July. Great for the parent who finds their kid has "borrowed" theirs for the day on a monthly contract and the school will not give it up." That's is the child's fault, not the school - the rules and consequences would have been known by all students and parents

Op - in terms of lockers given that most secondary schools have in excess of 800 students there will be few schools with he space to accommodate that amount of lockers. One school I worked at didn't have the space for a single locker. My current school has about 350 for over 1000 students. Students tend to go share lockers otherwise they do as others have suggested and drop their instrument off to the music room, drop off ingredients first thing and carry their PE kit. although I'm a very soft form tutor and allow my form to store their stuff in my cupboard

I would clarify the lunch time arrangements with regarding silent reading as this would be very difficult to supervise for the whole school. 30 mins is about average for a lunch time in my LA

When I was a tutor, my tutor group often left their stuff in my room if they had too much to carry. If she is over laden, she should ask. There's usually a solution someone can offer.

Haven't read all your posts since i last posted but DD has just told me (out of the blue) that she hates lunchtime - 'it's like a prison'. She said the head of year said anyone speaking during silent reading will be sent to isolation
Am i being soft?!

Curlew, you asked what i was going to say to school. I just want to know exactly what the situation. I'm not going in to complain - that was never my intention: just to get to the bottom of it.

I will make clear, though, that if they are expected to put their coats on the floor I won't be expecting my DD to - i think that's wrong. And it teaches children not to care for their belongings apart form anything else.

Lunch times - again, I want to know the exact position - easy for an 11 yr old to misinterpret. I'm surprised there is no info in the school handbook etc.

I'm comparing, too, with my eldest's super selective where the phone policy is too lax; they each have a locker - and more than hour lunchtime. Then again, their school day is 8.35 to 3.35 (my 11 yr old's is 8.45-3pm.

Good to read this - DS has just started yr 7 too and I have been quite bemused by the absence of lockers, but I guess it's just standard.