New phone policy

[whoknewitwouldbethiscrazy]

My ds is going into Yr11, his school has intoduced a very severe mobile phone/smart watch policy. They must not have phones/smart watches/headphones visible (even outline in a pocket) inside the school gates. They tried to make it on the buses too but seem to have backed down on that one. The sanctions are; 1st offence - phone/watch confiscated until the following Friday (so potentially 2 weeks) + isolation for 1 day; 2nd offence - phone/watch confiscated for 1 calendar month + 3 days isolation; 3rd offence - phone/watch confiscated until the end of that half term + 5 day isolation. Refusal to hand over the phone/watch means exclusion and then the sanction. Leaving aside the fact that if they don't break this new rule they don't have anything to worry about, does anyone know if it's legal for a school to confiscate a phone/watch for up to 7 weeks? My son has worked really hard to save up for a Garmin watch ( not sure if they will even view that as a smart watch) and would refuse to hand it over. He has a very strong sense of right and wrong and would definitely refuse, he is really angry about this new policy, even though he's rarely been in trouble. I am really worried for his final school year. Any advice? Thanks

it's a mine field.
for both school & students.

my dc school policy is that smart watches are not allowed and that phones need to be switchedoff and placed in their locker during lessons & lunch time.

many students carry their bus pass on the phone, a total ban would be unacceptable.

Very sensible policy. Buy him a cheap analogue or digital watch for school, phones stay in bags.

He has a very strong sense of right and wrong

He thinks he's right all the time and won't obey authority

fixed that for you :-)

I can see why the lad's upset. The whole point of buying a fitness-oriented watch like a Garmin is that you wear it all the time and it tracks your heart rate, steps, exercise, and other bits of data. There's a lot less benefit to it if you only pop it on when you get home or over the weekend. And he spent a long time working towards being able to buy it, before suddenly being told that because of a new school policy, it's useless. Anybody would be upset in these circumstances.

And the approach you take to a kid who knows that they're being naughty, and doing something that's unreasonable disobedience by any standards, is going to be very different to the approach you need to take to a kid who feels unfairly wronged and that they're standing up for what's right (whether they're correct about that by adult standards or not), so it's relevant.

Haha. I’ve been a secondary school teacher for nearly twenty years, during which time I’ve had daily contact with more teenagers than you have probably met in your lifetime. I am well aware of how ‘vile’ kids can be, having dealt with literally hundreds of incidents involving smartphones during school hours: videotaping and photographing other students and staff in order to bully them, sending, receiving, and viewing nudes and porn, not to mention many many thefts.

Children don’t need smartphones in schools.

You're one of THOSE parents who seems to think that they're above the law. Your needs trump all others.

Your DS must come first, above all others, "because he's worked hard all summer". Ah. Didums.

Guess what, people work hard all their lives. And they might still get to have a shit time at work. Why do you enable him to have such a self-entitled view of the world. There are rules everywhere you have to follow. Not all of them allow us what we want. But we do it for the sake of just getting on with life, hopefully for the better.

He's going to leave school in a couple of years. He can do whatever the hell he wants then.

Support the school and stop making it all about you.

There's plenty of evidence for the benefit of disallowing smartphones etc at school. Get on board.

Your DS must come first, above all others, "because he's worked hard all summer". Ah. Didums.

I would imagine that if this was an adult who'd spent months doing overtime to save up for something special, then shortly after buying it, a strict set of rules came in aimed at curbing the behaviour of a few miscreants that rendered their expensive new purchase close to useless, there'd be a bit more sympathy. Not necessarily encouragement to break the new rules, but at least some sympathy for a crappy situation.

Sounds like this is a kid who's never been a troublemaker, has a good sense of working for the things you want in life, and the thing he's worked hard for is something that probably isn't the intended target of the new rules, but due to some of its secondary functions unfortunately won't be excepted.

@YippieKayakOtherBuckets very glad you aren't one of the teachers at my childrens schools. Thankfully they are understanding and kind. Yes there are those issues but the majority of cyber bullying happens outside of school, that's a proven fact.

My son has worked really hard to save up for a Garmin watch ( not sure if they will even view that as a smart watch) and would refuse to hand it over
He sounds like a bit of a brat. Maybe encourage him to do as he's told and follow the rules. Otherwise he'll have to face the consequences.

You don’t know I’m not. I guarantee that the incidents I describe happen at your DC’s schools, although I very much hope your DC never find themselves a victim of them. You also have no knowledge of whether I am understanding or kind although you seem perfectly confident in making a groundless personal attack on me for saying that children don’t need smartphones in school.

I wish your DC all the best for the new academic year. I won’t engage further with your posts.

My school even has this policy for staff.

Smart watches are a.lowed but the connectivity to phones must be disconnected when working.

Phones must be in bags in classroom cupboards and cannot be on the person.

So I'd want to clarify a watch that records steps etc is ok if not connected to the phone. Purely because some will class a smart watch as anything outside a digital or analogue which means most students wearing a watch are at risk with what's on the market nowadays!

The easy thing is he doesn't wear expensive watch to school if he doesn't want to lose it.

But I don't agree with school who remove their possessions for weeks on end.

I think removal until end of day and use school sanctions and escalation of those sanctions.

I've never agreed it's up to school to dictate if pupils have their phones outside of school or not and should not be sending kids home without phones that parents believe they are travelling with.

I guess you're not familiar with this kind of wearable and why he'll be so upset about this rule change. Unless it's been bought specifically to monitor particular out-of-school workouts or sport sessions, the point of watches like this is usually to constantly gather data about your daily activity and body functions. A lot of the data gathered is fairly useless unless you're wearing the watch nearly all the time. It's not like a normal watch, or something like a handheld games console or a music player, where your enjoyment of the item at other times is unaffected by a schoolday ban. He'll be upset because the thing he worked for over the summer believing it would be accepted in school has now been made pretty much useless. The school could've indicated much earlier that rules on wearables were changing from this September, but didn't bother, so he's wasted a lot of his work.

. The school could've indicated much earlier that rules on wearables were changing from this September, but didn't bother, so he's wasted a lot of his work

I am guessing that the school didn't know he was planning on buying the watch, or when.

There are rules about different things everywhere and if you want to take part you need to follow them. Rules can also change. I understand it disappointing but it's just the way it is. It'll be the same when he gets a job.

I didn't mean they should've guessed this specific boy planned to spend the summer working to earn money for a Garmin watch, I mean in general it's good to give as much advance notice about changes in rules as possible. Sometimes rules have to change suddenly, but often it's been obvious there's an issue for a while (like with phones and smartwatches in school), and since the change may require people to do things differently or make different purchasing or budgeting choices it's fairly reasonable to give some notice. If there's been no notice and the lack of notice causes the rule change to have a financial or other difficult impact on people, then it can be upsetting. I'm talking about why it's unfair on the boy to mock him for being upset ("diddums"), rather than what rules schools should have around phones and smartwatches.

does anyone know if it's legal for a school to confiscate a phone/watch for up to 7 weeks?

The short answer is yes.

The longer answer is that the school can confiscate, retain or destroy/dispose of any item belonging to a pupil provided it is fair, reasonably and proportionate to do so taking into account the pupil's age, any special educational needs or disability, and religious requirements. If a Y11 child insists on wearing a watch that is banned by the school, the courts would definitely uphold the school's right to retain it for half a term following a third offence.

Seems very sensible. One local school took it further and second offence is keeping the device until the end of term.

Parents sign a contract to can't argue and they have really good GCSE results.

Your post is funny esp the part about his insistence over this policy being unacceptable.

He's that child and you're that parent..

A friend of mine who is a teacher said 95 per cent of bullying incidents involve phones so I would welcome this approach.

Our school is introducing a strict phone policy too but any confiscations are only until the end of the day, because so many pupils have their bus passes digitally on their phones.

This is a new rule at DDS school. Starting next week. I assumed they could take their phone to use on the way home? I like to track my daughter as she gets the bus.

The only issue I have is if she's upset / ill she can't message me. 3 times she's come home early and each time the office told her to go find the head of year which she never could or to go back at break then lunch. So I phoned the office to say I give her permission to come home. Otherwise she would be in school ill.

I agree phones aren't good during school. The kids use their phones in class and film other kids / fights.

Luckily the only consequence is the phone is taken off then until the end of that day and they have an hour detention that same day.

I was hoping if dd needed me she could use her phone in the toilet but if everyone did that the toilets would be constantly locked. Maybe this will cause more issues with no one being able to have a wee in school?

The argument that we all managed without phones is ridiculous. People managed without cars / washing machines / electricity but that doesn't mean we don't need them now. Kids don't know a life without phones.

prh47bridge
If a Y11 child insists on wearing a watch that is banned by the school, the courts would definitely uphold the school's right to retain it for half a term following a third offence.

So if a school set a rule that would ban any type of watch as they can be distracting (only imagine the kids would know how many minutes it is till the break time! huge distraction), then it will also be ok, because it is a school rule?

There is a big difference between rules and authority, on the one hand, and right and reasonable things to do on the other.

School staff have too much of unquestionable power. Who else can legally confiscate, destroy or dispose of your child's watch?

So if a school set a rule that would ban any type of watch as they can be distracting (only imagine the kids would know how many minutes it is till the break time! huge distraction), then it will also be ok, because it is a school rule?

I know you’ve given this as an extreme example
but for what it’s worth this is now the case for all public exams (in E & W at least - I’m not sure of the situation in Scotland). All watches of any sort, ‘smart’ or ‘dumb’, Garmins included, are now banned by the JCQ. It is an absolute nightmare in my subject as students have to manage their time very carefully in our GCSE paper. I know of several schools who have had to buy new large digital clocks for the exam halls as too many students couldn’t confidently read the existing analogue clocks.

The obvious thing to do is to leave everything at home

When I was at secondary school in the Nineties I didn't have a phone or watch and I survived just fine

Kids are there to learn not piss about on their phones. It's clearly a huge problem which is why such rules have been introduced