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?

In London children get a child zip oyster card: a prepaid card, which parents top up, with the child's photo and with credit to travel on London's public transport at discounted fares.

Our plan is to give our child some pocket money and a child debit card (Monzo, Revolut, Starling all do them), to be used only in emergency.
We are in inner London and there are multiple alternatives to go to and from school. The odds of the tube, the train and the buses all being kaputt at once are tiny. Anyway, with pocket money and a debit card she can get a black cab in an emergency situation, and get home (where the nanny with the younger child is - I didn't change the nickname after child #1!) faster than an adult would reach her and take her home.

In a situation of absolute emergency (say she gets hurt) she'll ask TfL staff or a shopkeeper to call us parents.

I am sure she will survive without a phone, like many other kids her age are surviving.

Of course I also appreciate that everyone's situation is different, that the logistics outside of London can be very different, and that some parents in the same situation as us would feel differently.

When mine joined the school we as parents were actively encouraged to get them smartphones. I wanted to hold off until year 9 but under the previous head pretty much everything needed a smartphone, time tables, homework, all communication. My kids phoned me from their own phones supervised by a staff member when they were ill and needed picking up or when school closed due to snow.
The first thing the new head did was ban phones.

Phones and smart watches placed into wooden racks at the door on arrival. Taken back at dismissal. High school kids can come and go as they please so they will do this a couple of times per day. Implemented for high school only four years ago, school wide two years ago. The children themselves love it, there’s been no push back except the odd parent here or there (literally nothing from the kids themselves), there’s been no attempt to subvert rules although there was an interesting incident a few months ago where a national test alert (for nuclear strikes!) was advertised two weeks, one week then two days before all the networks rolled it out at noon on the appointed days. The school were prepared for it so all the trolleys were wheeled into a storage room for 5 mins. However the kids with burner phones in their backpack (clearly not very smart ones) obvs got found out and many (well, a small handful) an unsuspecting parent was alerted to the fact their child had an entirely separate persona they didn’t know existed!

Mixed feelings. Phones can be useful in the classroom and our photocopy budget has shot up with the extra printing of exam markschemes rather than posting on teams to view.

You sound like one of the parents being complained about on the thread about teachers leaving the profession.

Your kid should have just gone to the school nurse.

The school I taught in did this nearly 10 years ago. It worked well.

Photocopying budget aside (because it's depressing), there's increasing evidence that using phones, tablets or laptops is worse for learning and information retention than e.g. physically writing down notes or being instructed in person, face to face. There's something about the physical brain-body connection that enhances comprehension and retention.

Unless specifically learning something that requires a computer (i.e. IT lessons), it's better not to use them.

@canklesmctacotits Yes, I’m surprised that some people think there’ll be pushback, because it hasn’t happened at DS’s school, the kids just accept the policy and follow it, including the 16-18 year olds.

There is literally no need for a child to have a phone at school. The only reason I can see is if they have to travel far and parents need to know where they are - but even then, you can use apple/ samsung tag to track them.

Teenagers and phones are a toxic mix. The less they have access to them the better.

Like I said - my son's Outstanding London academy would confiscate the phone for a whole term if found. However, if he is unwell or needs to talk to me he can call from the office or ask one of the teachers to call me - and if he is unwell, I would be called straight away to pick him up. Works fairly well.

Phones are to be switched off and in bags before entering school. Anyone with their phone has it confiscated and is issued with a detention that same day. Parents are required to come into school to then collect the phone.

You’ve posted this several times without engaging with anyone’s follow up, so I’m not sure you are posting in good faith but I will reply anyway.

Reasonable adjustments are specifically stated in the guidelines. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mobile-phones-in-schools/mobile-phones-in-schools

Screenshot of the section in you don’t want to read it for yourself.

This isn’t the gotcha you think it is, did you seriously think this wasn’t discussed and considered?

Did it in 2019. Phones in phone locker before school, receive it back after prep.
If its weds or sat sport, tough if you don't collect it before the bus leaves!

Best thing ever.

6th formers were always allowed to keep them.

@Simonjt clearly there are exceptions

Switched off and in bags. If seen confiscated for a week and lent a dumb phone

AirTags only work if they’re in range of a phone signal and work on crowdsourced Apple kit. So if a child has an AirTag but weren’t around anyone with an iPhone it won’t register. Making it fairly useless as a tracking device. Plus it doesn’t help if a child is being followed (as my child rang me worried she was being) or just any other issue of which there’s thousands. A phone to and from school is a necessity for me. Then off and in bags. Job done.

As if I’d be handing my child’s phone over to a teacher just because they asked me to. 😂😂

No smart phones on premises even in bags at my son’s school, so he has an old school Nokia in his bag that he to call or text me on as he leaves school . I agree with it.

Sixth form are allowed their phones at my school. While in lesson if requires and in their common room. Not allowed to walk around the school with them.

I’m not sure under what circumstances you mean but prob best to (try) and find another school that does it differently.

Correct, we have never allowed our kids phones.

I suspect ours will continue to pretend the kids don’t have their phones.

ours are switched off/on silent and in bags and it doesn’t seem to cause a problem

I assume phones are being banned because of usage in class. This is wisdom to me, phones are a distraction at school.

AirTags weren’t around when my dd was at school, but she had a phone so that if there was a problem with the bus she could contact us …not much point knowing where she was if we couldn’t contact her to liaise.

School rule was simply phones off while on the premises.