Strict no phones rule at secondary school

[mrstidytraxxxx]

DS is starting Y7 in September. The school has a strict no mobile phone rule on site. If a student takes a mobile onto school grounds and it is found, it is confiscated for a minimum of 48-hours.

We live approximately a 30-minute walk from secondary school. There are buses, but these are apparently unreliable.

Either myself or DH will take DS to school at present (primary school is less than 10-minute walk away) and he walks home by himself, with one of us meeting him at home.

When DS plays out with friends, he has his mobile with him and knows we use Google Family Link to check he is where he says he is and he is happy with this arrangement. Obviously, we will not be able to continue like this for school journeys from September.

I would like to get a GPS tracker, either key-ring or watch, to make sure where he is on the way home.

Can anyone recommend an Android-compatible GPS key-ring or watch, that does not alert if it moves too far away from the mobile it is connected to, preferably subscription free?

Thanks in advance.

What I did for my dcs when they were walking to junior school, was undo the lining in their school bag, put a cheap mobile into the lining and sew it up with very loose stitches that they could easily break and get it out if necessary.
I did that because dd1 hates breaking the rules.
They used it between them 3-4 times, but each time it was really good they had it.

I like that their secondary is happy to have phones as it makes life much easier, and my dc have never had any mobile issues because the school comes down hard on anyone who does try anything.

Many children have travel passes on their phones, which work out cheaper than paying daily. I'd say that's a damn good reason to allow a phone, unless the school were willing to make up the difference.

This would never happen though - the OP has obviously misunderstood the rule and it's just the same as a lot of other schools, phones off and out of sight on the premises. DD fell foul to this at the start of y7 - she was walking into school with the phone switched off, but still in her hand. She was told off and knows now it needs to be away in her bag before she goes onto the school grounds.

The idea of people cutting contact with their parents because they were tracked as a child has really tickled me 😂 one could just as easily put across the opposite - people cutting contact with their parents because they didn't track them as a child and they've realised their parents didn't care very much about their safety 😂

It's not saying you don't trust them; it's saying that when they're late out of school because they couldn't find their gym bag, or there's an accident reported outside school you can relieve your worries.
I don't think mine ever took me asking them to text me to say when they were coming home as a lack of trust. In some ways it made them feel more relaxed because if they were late out of school they didn't have to hurry, they knew that I would know.

A bit like when I come back from holiday I send a text to Mum to say all back. I know she trusts me, she just likes to know we're safely home.

@MargaretThursday same - I text my parents if we've made a long journey somewhere to let them know we arrived safely, and they do the same. My MIL also messages DH after she's made a lengthy drive so I know it's normal and not just my family. We're all adults and it's nothing to do with trust, it's just a nice/considerate thing you do with family.

Yes-texting when you get home. Or texting when you're on the way home. Texting if you're going to be late. All perfectly fine. And NOT TRACKING!!!!!!

How does everyone else cope?

Where do you stand on tracking flights out of interest? If DH goes abroad with work and I'm not otherwise busy I'll track his plane on flight radar and I know when he's landed. Is that an invasion of his privacy?

The Hollie Guard

www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2021-10-05/safety-app-made-in-memory-of-murdered-hairdresser-sees-surge-in-demand

Created by the parents of a young woman tragically murdered by her ex partner. It's designed to notify your emergency contacts if you are in danger and your whereabouts, essentially tracking and communicating your location. There is demand and need for such apps amongst adults, sadly. Is it such a leap that similar precautions are a good idea for children? I'm not necessarily in agreement kids should be actively tracked by their parents, but I do agree if something unexpected happens parents should be able to check their location. Surely badgering a teenager with "are you ok" "where are you" texts is worse/will annoy them/lose their trust even more!

@Calloffruity "
Where do you stand on tracking flights out of interest? If DH goes abroad with work and I'm not otherwise busy I'll track his plane on flight radar and I know when he's landed. Is that an invasion of his privacy?"

Well, no. Because you're tracking the plane he's probably on. Not him. I don't understand why this stuff is so hard!

I think a lot of posters are misunderstanding this. Most parents aren't sitting there obsessively checking on their dc whereabouts. I barely check my dcs. On some occasions it's useful though. For example, the other day my dcs school phoned me to say dc hadnt come in. It was actually just an admin error by the school but I was able to check the location which was useful.

My kids also track ME - if they hear there's problems on the motorway they will quite often look up my location to see if I'm caught up in it, or if I'm on another route to know when I'm likely to be back (my youngest has autism and is quite anxious and it reassures her that she knows she can keep a rough idea on where I am if she needs to - I work a very large rural community area so I'm pretty all over the place), as does DH (and vice-versa) - being able to see we're heading back helps us get things like dinner going at the right time.

DD1 is very confident and also quite able to solve problems herself - but DD2 has a range of SEN, although none are of the level where mainstream is not the right place for her educationally - it's going to be important when she starts secondary that she has a phone on her for the start and the end of the day so that we can do things like set reminders for where she needs to be, and arrange meeting points to collect at the end of the day. At the moment we're teaching her to use her phone to slightly support her lack of executive function and attention (she has inattentive ADHD among other issues) in terms of lists, reminders, schedules etc - and I'd be bloody pissed off if school decided that they wanted to remove that completely, especially since we've also put a lot of time into appropriate phone use and when to turn it off (and her other issues mean that she is one who will stick to those rules rigidly). It's one factor in terms of the schools we're looking at for secondary for her and her sibling - ones that are not totally OTT in terms of the rules they take pleasure in imposing on the kids (one of our local secondaries very much IS and delights in being in the local paper for sending home half the kids every start of September when they've randomly changed uniform rules at last minute - and we are steering well fucking clear of that, once outstanding and now sliding meteorically - in the manner of a meteor descending to Earth - down the Ofsted ratings).

Well, no. I'm tracking him on the plane. I wouldn't be tracking the plane if he wasn't on it. What's the difference between tracking a plane and tracking a phone?

@Calloffruity I have not misunderstood the school; the blanket ban was explicitly stated on more than one occasion and the school actually suggested a tracker if parents wanted to know where the children were (from a safety point of view).

Thank you to the posters that have actually provided recommendations.

Apologies then, that's just completely ridiculous. They cannot expect 11yos to be travelling to and from school without a means of communicating with their parents. What about travel passes as I said in an earlier post. I would 100% have DD hiding a phone in her bag (as I imagine at least half the school will be doing) and I'd coordinate as many parents as possible to contact the governors. Power in numbers, you can get it changed. Contact your MP even with safety concerns. If the school are that hellbent on no devices they should collect them at the door.

I think this as well. Reasonable to not allow phones to be used at any time from arrival until they have left the school grounds.
Unreasonable to suggest that kids can't have a phone with them outside of this. They might need to go directly to an activity after school or have two homes, or whatever.
I'd be for phone in bag switched off, not taken out, and I would attempt to get the school to agree this, rather than hiding phone in lining. Y7 they might just be hiding phones, Y8/9/10, they might be sneaking all kinds of things into school so I would not encourage that idea.

@CurlewKate - my DD is 8 and has an AirTag in her school bag . She walks to and from school (20 min walk) with our neighbors DD (same age).

I don’t live in the UK, this is entirely normal here. But it is still alien to me (I’m from the UK). I want to be able to see where she has got to when she is delayed. And sometimes I check that she arrived at school (the school won’t necessarily contact me if she doesn’t show up). I don’t want her to have a phone yet , I’ll delay that as long as possible, so texting not an option. She won’t wear a watch. A tracker it is.

There are, presumably, lots of situations outside of your experience where a parent feels a tracker is the best option.

Yes I was also thinking about children who have 2 homes. Completely unreasonable not to allow them to travel with phones. I would come up with a list of all the potential reasons that a child might need their phone before or after school:

To contact parents - few phone boxes around nowadays
Bus/travel pass is on phone
To access travel apps (eg DD tracks her bus and can see if it's going to be late etc.)
Child travels between 2 homes
Child has after school activities
Reasonable adjustments for children with SEN
Reasonable adjustments for children awaiting SEN diagnosis

I'm sure there's more.

No child needs to be tracked. Ever. We were all fine walking to and from school before mobile phones were invented. I wish parents would stop stifling their children and over-protecting them..... no wonder some young people seem to lack resilience as a result.

Yes hbh17. No one ‘needs’ to make use of any emergent technology because life existed before it… never mind if it could be useful in certain situations.

You're tracking the plane. You have no idea whether your DH is actually on it. I mean, I'm sure you have no reason to doubt his word, but strictly speaking, you have no idea.

same with the tracker though. You are tracking the tracker, not the child…

I am interested if there is any link between lack of resilience and tracking.
I do read about it a lot on mumsnet - all the damage tracking does, but has there been any research done on it? I am genuinely interested. I do track my children, but I reconsider this often and would stop if I thought it was causing actual harm.

What Three Words is vastly more accurate than any tracker

I assume you have a mobile phone. Why not just get rid of it? Afteral you must have managed without one at some point.