Phones banned from schools from 1st April - what is your school doing?

[Kepler22B]

My school (teacher) is fully implementing the new government policy https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mobile-phones-in-schools/mobile-phones-in-schools

Phones handed in at the start of the school day and not collected until they go home. It is a boarding school so they can get their phones for a short while in the evening. No change for us here, we already did this.

What is changing for us is no phones on trips or matches or Saturdays. Plus the rules now apply to 6th form (but there is some leeway that my school isn’t taking)

Is your school fully banning phones? How are they implementing this? Are you happy with the rules?

Our senior school did this years ago. They are to be left switched off in bags and not seen on the premises. If a child is seen with a phone they are confiscated until Friday afternoon.
Seems fine to me (medical exemptions apply!) - dc now take card games etc in to play with others at break/lunch rather than sitting with their noses buried in phones. Seems sensible.

Same as pp ours has had this in place for years thank goodness.

Ours is on its second year of Yondr pouches so no change for us. Before that it was switched off and out of sight.

The school has said they've seen big changes in behaviour as well as how kids socialise - there is something for kids in knowing their phone is totally inaccessible vs the temptation still being there.

I wish all schools did this!

We banned phones about 5 years ago. Switched off and in bags.

Phones have been in phone pouches all day for all students for last 3 years at my DDs school. They are allowed them on trips and matches though.

Phones have been banned at my school for a long time - 5+ years? Sixth form allowed them but only in the very few sixth form only areas.

switched off and in bags.

it’s generally very well accepted by students and parents.

But since the new gov guidance OP now it’s no longer phones within the school day on coaches etc. so for matches trips etc. it’s funny because the one time I think phones are quite good is when they keep them quiet on a coach ride!

But since the new gov guidance OP now it’s no longer phones within the school day on coaches etc. so for matches trips etc. it’s funny because the one time I think phones are quite good is when they keep them quiet on a coach ride!

Our school has never allowed phones during the school day.

DD1 starts secondary in Sept and it is now smartphone free. They have to put any phone away at start of sch day, but a smartphone cannot be on site at all.

I really welcome it tbh. It helps us a lot when she argues she wants a phone!

School hasn't said anything about changes, so I assume its business as normal - phones not to be seen at school. Confiscated if seen or heard.

But the policy is not legally binding, right?

AFAIK in London (and presumably elsewhere) there tend to be 4 kinds of policies:

• phone neither seen nor heard, or it gets confiscated. This means kids can still use it in the bathrooms and outside school (so some glue themselves to the screen instead of socialising outside the school)
• pouches which lock the phones. So cannot use it in bathrooms but can use it outside the school.
• No phones on school premises. If parent demands it and the school authorises it (eg they want it for travelling to/from the school), the child in question drops off the phone when they arrive and collect it on the way out
• No phones. Ever. No exceptions.

I like the 3rd. No phones ever can be too harsh for older kids doing activities after school. The problem with pouches is kids might socialise less after school, and it might actually encourage bullying

At DC school this has been in place for a couple of years (phones off and in bag when at school). If phones are seen they are confiscated until the end of the day (repeat offenders may have the phone taken for longer).

Not sure how effective it is as mine still message me if they want/need something.

A different local school makes the students put phones in a locked bag which probably works better.

I work with 10/11 years olds in year 6. Ours have always handed them in when they arrive at school. They collect at the end of the day, so perfect for walking to/from school.

This should hopefully make it easy for when they go to secondary, as they don’t expect to have them during the day.

Ours are supposedly turned off and in bags. Can’t say it works well. Yondr pouches are a good idea but expensive to install.

so many kids have second phones too, and if caught, hand the dummy phone in.

So children with diabetes can’t attend the school, or children with certain hearing aids?

Most schools are perfectly happy to accept that policies do not apply to children with medical needs.

toilet passes can be issued, students can be given permission to skip the lunch queue etc.

students who need their phones for medical reasons - eg monitoring diabetes - should get reasonable adjustments

I have a question. Our school has no phone policy, if seen or heard it is confiscated for 48 hours. If that falls on a Thursday or Friday, no phone for the weekend or worse still until after the holidays - even the summer holidays!

Are they even allowed to do this? My dd13 at the time is a good girl, never in trouble, always does her best at school etc. Her attendance is excellent. One day she text me from the toilet to say she was really poorly, very bad tummy ache and worried about having an accident on the way back to class or the office and what should she do.

I told her I would ring the office and explain and I would pick her up, that she needs to go to the office.

Rang office explained, all fine but they need to ring me back as it’s procedure. Waiting 20 minutes, 30 minutes so rang them back, eventually after 1 hour I was allowed to collect a very poorly dd.

They confiscated her phone. With it being Friday it was gone for the weekend. I asked to see the head, he refused to see me. I said the phone was mine and they are not allowed to keep my property, didn’t work.

Are they allowed to do that? My dd was effectively punished for asking her mum for help while ill. She doesn’t use her phone at school, this was the only time. The rule is if it is seen or heard from a member of staff - which it was not!

My kids school started this a few years ago. If phones were confiscated they could only be collected 3-4pm by a parent.

It made a huge difference to how the kids interacted with each other at break and lunchtime. My friend works there and said the change was immediate, they went from being glued to their phones to actually talking and playing games.

Of course there were the usual parents kicking off about human rights…

How can school say no phones ever?? Kids don't live at school and aren't the responsibility of school when they are at home. That decision is for parents.

With kids who travel on public transport to another town for school I would absolutely not accept them not being allowed a phone for the journey.

Handing phones in and collecting them would be a huge pain and very time consuming for a large school plus what happens if a phone goes missing.

@bonbonours Bear in mind I was talking about hugely oversubscribed schools in densely populated inner London, where distance is the main admission criterion, so most pupils won't live far.

How can they say no to phones? Schools can do pretty much whatever the eff they want, they tend to be accountable to no one.

Ashcroft in SW London bans bicycles and gives detentions to students caught riding to school. There have been threads and press reports about it.

Mossbourne in Hackney (East London) had been emotionally abusing children for years, shouting at them and holding seminars on the benefit of instilling fear. The consequences? Nothing. Look it up. Huge thread here, too.

With kids who travel on public transport to another town for school I would absolutely not accept them not being allowed a phone for the journey.

I see your point. I don't fully agree with it but I see your point. I suppose a lot will depend on the level of anxiety of the parent and the kind of journey. I know parents in London who track their little Jimmy who has to travel 4 bus stops or 1 tube stop in inner London as if he were travelling alone in Caracas at night. Longer journeys on more isolated routes are different (even though our generation managed to survive without phones all the same)

I went on the bus to school without a phone.
The difference was the existence of phone boxes - so if something went wrong I could contact home. I had some 10p pieces in a tiny envelope in my blazer pocket - with the house phone no, and Dad's work number written on.

Phoneless kids now would struggle to contact a parent if something went wrong (like the last bus - 4pm - getting cancelled).

Going on the bus without a smart phone is a lot more difficult in our area - season tickets are only available on an app. No exceptions.

You can buy single tickets from the driver as you board - using card only, no cash - but if you want to save money with a termly or yearly (or even monthly) ticket then you need a smartphone with data switched on and it shows a constantly updating QR code as your ticket.

I am baffled how any school not already having this policy... although ours allows on trips except the year 7 residential.

I assumed this was the case everywhere.
I now know however, that the secondary school most sought after in our town, uses phones lessons! How can anyone think this is a good idea. Ofsted outstanding school