No phone allowed at secondary school - Phone cards best option?

[mummymaz12]

Hi, my son is starting secondary school and mobile phones are completely banned at school. He will be travelling into London by train/tube but there will be times when trains go wrong & he will need to do a different journey or come into a different station & will need to let me know.

He will have money with him so can use a cash phone box (if he can find one) but are there any universal phone cards I could get that he could use on any phone box??

Thanks

Surprised at school by this. I do feel phones are over-used, but to ban them altogether seems harsh, in this day and age.

**ban

He has it in the small inside pocket of his bag.

More antediluvian than harsh.

I'd not have sent my child to a school with such a pointless rule. Our schools round here all have a "switched off during school hours" rule and it works fine.

My nieces secondary has a total phone ban and one night the school bus was involved in an accident. By the time the police had contacted the bus company who in turn contacted the school, the school office was closed so nobody could contact anyone. The dc were borrowing phones from people at the scene, which was easy enough as people could see there was an accident and were willing to help out. I don't think that would happen in other situations.

Schools with full phone bans are just silly IMHO

teaching kids sensible phone use would be better

"I think it is great when schools take a hard line on phone use.
Still, if I were in your situation, I would get him a £5 PAYG phone"

That type of comment makes me want to Howl at the hypocrisy. A phone going to school is always terrible except for all the times when it's extremely useful and absolutely essential, worth breaking all the rules after all - pah!!

Get him a gps watch that can call you/you can call him? We got one and it's great.

"I think it is great when schools take a hard line on phone use.
Still, if I were in your situation, I would get him a £5 PAYG phone"

That type of comment makes me want to Howl at the hypocrisy. A phone going to school is always terrible except for all the times when it's extremely useful and absolutely essential, worth breaking all the rules after all - pah!!

It's not hypocritical at all. The poster said that schools should take a hard line on phone USE, not on phone taking-to-school.

I think a super basic dumb phone with a few calls in it, hidden at the bottom of the bag, satisfies the "intent" of the rule. It has zero distraction temptation, and is not going to result in a mugging either. I got one for 20 pounds when I was visiting the UK a little while back.

And yes, do get him phone cards as well. If a phone is barely ever used, there is a risk of forgetting to charge it up (I speak from experience!). And while phone boxes are hard to find, you can usually find one if you walk around for long enough. Cards could help out in an emergency when the dumb phone is not charged up.

Not sure how GPS watches work, but if they are flashy/distracting/desirable property then I would say that they would create some of the same potential issues as a smartphone. Dumb phone hidden in bag would be better.

Any type of smart watch is banned at my dcs school, they are allowed a phone but it must not be on or taken out of their bag or it's confiscated until a parent comes to collect it. I'd hide one in his bag.

I just learnt that a local Boarding school is banning all phones for years 9 and 10 as a trial. They say pupils still have ready access to email and school phones.
Might be fine if I the school didn't already have a subtle reputation for bullying and definitely not keeping boarding parents fully informed. Personally I would be very concerned if my children were there.

lljjk
The problem with phones in school is the smartphone, the snap chatting, the taking pictures, the listening to music, the messaging friends, etc. The problem is not being able to make a voice call to parents, or send a text (by labouriously pushing 3 times on the number one for a "c").

We live in the countryside, and there are no phone boxes any more, so my kids need a phone to call me when their bus is very late (15 mile trip). A phone to call home on the way back from school is not what the school is fighting here, but they will probably still have a blanket ban.

I find it much better not to try to argue with big institutions about their intransigent rules. Just follow the spirit of the rule (the good part of it) and break the rule in a sensible way when necessary, with no fuss.

I think it is sad when people are unable to see that this approach makes sense and doesn't hurt anyone. Probably you just enjoy sneering though...

I find it much better not to try to argue with big institutions about their intransigent rules. Just follow the spirit of the rule (the good part of it) and break the rule in a sensible way when necessary, with no fuss
I agree and I'm a big fan of no phones in school rules.

Our rule is if it is switched off and we never see it or hear it then we don't care. If we see it or hear it then we confiscate it.

I'd give him an old brick phone that is turned off (not on silent) and kept safe in his bag. Agree with another poster, make it clear you'd go ape shit if there was a problem with it at school.

Do phone cards really exist anymore? I haven't seen a phone card in ... I don't know... fifteen years? What about a new Nokia 3310 retro phone? Techadvisor (a magazine) runs a piece called "The best basic phones of 2017" and has mentioned it.

I find it much better not to try to argue with big institutions about their intransigent rules. Just follow the spirit of the rule (the good part of it) and break the rule in a sensible way when necessary, with no fuss

Exactly. I am basically very anti-smartphone use in schools (and am very glad that most schools that were trying out BYOD crap a few years back are now starting to rethink this). But a boring old retro phone stuffed into the bottom of the bag is not an issue. It should really be seen as a kind of pager, not a "phone" in the sense that the rules are thinking of.

To a PP: yes, of course you can get phone cards. Everyone should have them, and it is very important that phone boxes continue to be maintained, even if we have fewer of them than in the past. Phone battery charges do not last for ever, and they can be useful in emergencies.

Schools banning phones is not constructive.
There are delays of over 2 hours on some routes round here this morning.
Kids with phones can notify parents / friends / school / college
that they will be late / early / whatever
kids without phones cannot

in the old days teachers could have discretion
nowadays with electronic registers and constant snooping by ofsted, they cannot

Could he not just bring a phone but keep it switched off?

At dd's school you can bring a phone as long as it's kept switched off.

Gps watches aren't smart watches-they have no access to Internet. They would be an ideal solution. The one we have, we pay £9 a month and dd has 60 minutes call time. It uses any available network and she can only call or accept calls from numbers that I control via my phone. In an emergency, she presses one button and it automatically calls three numbers until one answers. Very accurate gps signals and you can track their route.

www.techsixtyfour.com/

what a silly over reaaction rule. let them have phones on the journey, in the locker as soon as get to school, detentions for nyome caught not obeying. Like virtually every other secondary school.

my DC commutes into London and I would not be at all happy about not getting the WhatsApp message as I'm getting to work saying he's safely at school and that's he home.

I wouldn't reccomend relying on phone boxes. They are far and few between these days. Just call the school and point out that it is a safety issue. I'm sure that you will be able to work sonething out.

God I wish my DD went to a school that banned phones. My kid obviously goes to a really slack school. I honestly can't see how they would enforce the child having a phone on them, switched off, that could be used in the case of an emergency.

Gavel
let them have phones on the journey, in the locker as soon as get to school, detentions for nyome caught not obeying. Like virtually every other secondary school.
What locker?
DCs school never had lockers for all the kids
and the college (with 4000 kids) certainly does not

I'm another one whose school had an absolute ban on phones. One student was given a detention for being seen using one in school uniform at a mainline station on the way home. Its more common than people think.

OP - As it is to deal with unusual change of travel plans I would go with a concealed basic phone, so long as your DS won't blab about it!