Mobile phones

[LittleEsmeWeatherwax]

Are pupils banned from using them in your school? What are your policies?

Pupils in my school are taking the piss and I'm sick of being the ogre teacher who sticks to the rules.

DD's phone at school has been jolly useful, like when she has a competition or rehearsal with unknown finish time. If she forgot something, we want to remind her about something, just jolly useful.

Handing 1200 phones in and out at DD's school would be a nightmare, how long would it take to hand the feckers back out & can you imagine the nightmare if just one child got handed back the wrong phone?

Allowed but not in classes or corridors. Confiscated if used. Pupils can get them back at the end of the day if they pay a £1 to charity, otherwise a parent has to collect.

"Those who need them for travel have to hand them into the office at the start of the day & collect them at the end."

There are over 1500 students at DD's school, a great many of whom travel by bus. The time consuming practicalities of handing in and retrieving phones at each end of the school day would be impossible and the buses would either leave empty or they would have to wait for too long.

The official line at DD's school is that they are allowed to carry mobile phones, but not use them at school. In reality I see pictures on FB taken at school and tweets on Twitter made during lesson time, so the rule isn't as strictly enforced as it might be.

DD having a phone at school has been so useful. She was allowed to message me from art the other day and ask if I could email some photos to her.

No phones in lessons.
Always on silent.

Why do kids have smartphones?
So they can access the twitter feed of the bus company to know whether they will get home.
So that they can take pictures of homework requirements rather than copying it down wrong
So that they can access online school diary information

Kids have the phones.
The genie is out of the bottle.
If your school is not using the technology for its own means they are daft IMHO

Good post TalkinPeace

Why smart-phones for children... actually because they only cost £60 and kids won't be seen with any other phone. So my 15yo literally will not use a phone because the only one we bought him is a little folder (not touchscreen). Having the wrong phone is far more naff than having no phone at all.

LittleEsme:

I think you raise a good point as does TalkinPeace - clearly it's about culture/ management...

If the school culture is to use phones during class - that is not a good situation. There needs to be a change in that behavior (less phone use for social reasons in class) & support from management. I totally get your points about what a huge distraction phones are - although for us the ipod and access to games is more of an issue (but maybe that's DD1).

I have a friend who teaches Junior High in my home town (so 12/13 year olds) - he posts a lot of information on VLE for them to access with their phones (lots of instruction type stuff - which they need to keep up on their phones to follow through with work). He does offer handouts - but pretty well has never had to resort to ye olde piece of paper instructions. He also has them view experiments before trying them themselves.

I think Talk is right - phones in class can be a tool to assist learning - it's just building that into teaching methods and setting paramaters.

However LittleEsme - I think there's a huge difference between teaching a group of highly motivated kids and a group of kids that don't want to be there and collectively are working hard to undermine teacher (including texting each other during class). The teenage years can be pretty socially unacceptable - but they do grow out of it.

Cyber bullying is a huge issue - but the beauty of mobile phones is you have a record - in the days of 'he said'/ 'she said' schools really couldn't get to the bottom of whether something did or didn't transpire. So in my book it actually makes punishing bullying easier - those records are there and it is a crime (can be reported to the police). I know that a friend's DS filmed his brother being beating up by school bully and e-mailed it to school. School bully was expelled and is no longer at the school.

It's a tool - like a hammer or an art knife. Can be used for good as well as bad - depends on person using it/ their training/ and supervision.

My DDs' school has a no phone policy. Any phones seen by a teacher are confiscated and go and live with the Head for a week in 'phone jail'. The girls then have to go and see her to get them back.

FiveHours
In a school with 1500 pupils, some of whom live an hour away (11 miles) on rural roads,
confiscating phones would result in

• no children staying for after school activities - as they could not access transport
• children arriving late because they could not access changes to the bus times
• children missing medical appointments because parents could not send them an urgent SMS

Your DDs school seems to think the genie is not out of the bottle
it is not preparing the pupils well for the real world

PS
DCs school is a true comp
teachers have learned that letting lower ability kids listen to their music while working keeps them from disrupting each other
win - win - reality

Anybody who thinks their kids are not using snapchat during the school day needs to wake up and smell the coffee

FiveHoursSleep I thought they were allowed to bring mobile phones to school if they are kept switched off in their locker during school hours? I'm sure I read that somewhere on the school website.

At DD's school they are allowed to bring mobile phones.
Officially the rules are that they are switched off and keep in their locker, bag or blazer pocket, but can be used at break time and lunch time.

Reality is that some teachers make use of them in lessons - as a camera (take photos of whiteboard notes, etc), as a music player (in music/drama often), as a quick access calculator (outside of maths) and for research on the internet, etc. But this is only with the teacher's express permission.

Many of the children have long commutes so having a mobile phone permitted makes things easier after school.

Also, we've noticed on school trips they are encouraged to have them - for photographs, and also as a contact to let parents know eta - often the letters/meetings tell parents that children will be the ones to let them know if the coach will be late, etc.

Dd, Y7, is allowed a phone but it must be silent and not seen during the school day, confiscated if seen. I'm glad she has it. She walks home to an empty house 4 days a week, as I'm at work. Her school is a v busy place with loads of stuff going on. She often texts/phones me at 3.15 to say she's going to this catch-up session, or she's staying later in homework club, or she's popping to a friends for 1/2 on the way home. Huge school, so definitely unreadable to hand in.

I know at DD's school it is very much the case that when phones have been allowed in lessons it has been for very specific reasons and it is supervised and monitored by the staff. DD says it is only the teachers who are quite techy themselves who ever allow them to be used.

But a school like DDs, with such a large catchment area, are never going to ban mobile phone - and the admin involved in hanging in phones very morning/night for a big secondary school would be immense.

At my DC's school phones are absolutely not allowed. They all have them of course but they all know they must be turned off and not seen in school at all, ever.

They are confiscated until the next day if seen.

Personally, I think this is fantastic. They did it initially because almost all the bullying they had to deal with originated through phone use in one way or another but it gives Dc a break from the relentless screen usage and they actually talk to each other at breaktimes.

Yep I have seen the 'taking photos of the homework instead of writing it down'.

I can understand but then there are sime recent studies that shows that using your smart phone as soon as you gave an issue instead of thinking for yourself is really NOT a good thing to do. It makes people less able to look after themselves and take good decisions.

So in that ground, I wouldn't allow them.

In our secondary, phones have to be on silence or searched off. And yes parents ring/text at any time and expect the teenager to answer!!

I can understand but then there are sime recent studies that shows that using your smart phone as soon as you gave an issue instead of thinking for yourself is really NOT a good thing to do.
link please

"In a school with 1500 pupils, some of whom live an hour away (11 miles) on rural roads,
confiscating phones would result in

• no children staying for after school activities - as they could not access transport
• children arriving late because they could not access changes to the bus times
• children missing medical appointments because parents could not send them an urgent SMS"

What nonsense.

-After schools activities are known about in advance, so you/they work out their journey home the night before.
-Changes to bus times happen so rarely that if the child's late, the child's late and that's a genuine excuse
-In a genuine emergency, the school office will get a message to the child

DS1 is only 13 and I didn't have a phone until after he was born. Somehow, people still managed to get to school and medical appointments.

Phones might make some things easier, but they stop children thinking for themselves and cause no end of other problems.

DS1 got the wrong bus on his first day at secondary. He didn't have a phone (because they're banned) so he had to speak to the driver and between them they worked out how he could get home. It was a bit traumatic for him but he was OK and learned from it. With a phone he'd have called me and I'd have gone and rescued him, which would have been OK, but nothing learned.

DS1 does a 12 mile bus journey, and DS2 walks to school. I am glad they have their phones with them.

I am more than happy to rescue my children if required. All they need to do is text or call.

Holepunch
Changes to bus times happen so rarely that if the child's late, the child's late and that's a genuine excuse
Ha Ha Ha
You obviously do not rely on Stagecoach then : the bus times can be altered at 25 minutes notice

After schools activities are known about in advance, so you/they work out their journey home the night before.
Yeah right

• an away match 30 miles away where the return time is plus or minus an hour

get real to the life outside London

Me too Sparkling, but there must come a time when they need to learn to rescue themselves, surely?

I'm not in London Talkin and my Dc have a similar life to yours. How can the return journey be plus or minus an hour and if it is, so what, they can wait.

I don't dispute that phones make life easier in some aspects, but they are so disruptive in school that I'd far rather my Dc were at a school without them.

The reality is though, that provided they aren't stupid, they can have them, even in schools where they are banned, as long as they keep them out of sight.

DS1's bus meanders on a tour of the countryside for 12 miles. There are about 4 stops that I collect him from depending on what we have to do and how late the bus is. So he texts me when the bus leaves so I can get to the appropriate stop on time.

They can rescue themselves if need be but after a long day at school if I am around I am more than happy to do any rescuing.

They are children. When they are adults they can rescue themselves, it's no biggie.

How can the return journey be plus or minus an hour and if it is, so what, they can wait.
So, your kids are at an event with an uncertain end time, an hour from school
and you live half an hour from school
how would they contact you to tell you when to meet them?
or is your life so empty that you can afford to sit outside school for an hour

PS in the old days there were phone trees and a lot more SAHM and a lot less inter school opportunities for kids

I've gone down the "embrace it" route in my classroom. Phones off and in bags during lessons, but students are encouraged to take pics of anything that they don't finish for easier follow-up, and we push them to use their dead commuting time to revise vocabulary on Quizlet or verb forms on an app. We have also asked them to submit videoclips as homework.

This said, my students are 6th formers and generally a bit more able to manage their phones, although I can always spot who has come from a super-strict school, as they struggle more to exercise self control.

Students have also mailed me with bus stop selfies to prove that they're genuinely late and trying to get in

Lemon what is, in your opinion, a super strict house?
And why do you think that it also equals less ability to have some self control over them?

Genuine question.
Dc1 is in Y7 and we don't really have major issues with mobile. But we do with tablets/Internet and the reason why we are (very) strict is because he can't exercise self control. Dc2 has no issue to do so.
So I'm wondering in preparation for the transition to a 'fancier' mobile phone.