Brick phone at an iPad school

[Walkingdisaster1991]

Just wondering what brick phone everyone is getting their children for September?
I've been trying to work out if my children would be able to get away with their smart phones if they're hidden 🫣. And also what are peoples view on this new rule? I understand why the schools and government are bringing this policy in but I'm also so frustrated as I've now not only got to spend out loads as my youngest is starting secondary school, but now I need to buy 3 children brick phones as well as a tracker to keep in their bags/on keys 😩 also the school my children are at before they even start you have to spend nearly £500 on an iPad 🫠🫠 madness how they can't have a smart phone but have to have an I pad Imo 🤦🏻‍♀️. Also not sure if I chose the right subject for this or not so sorry if posting in wrong place.

What new rule?

Amendment 215 to Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 to Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 - Parliamentary Bills - UK Parliament https://share.google/gIHkPtXVRrVTE7hT5

My children’s school are doing the pouch thing so they take them but they are locked in a pouch from the minute they go in to when they leave. They have just started this ready for September.

is your school allowing brick type phones but not smart phones?

Why do you need a tracker if your child has a brick phone? You can just call them and ask them where they are.

Please don’t encourage your kids to break the rules by buying them phones and telling them to hide them. Think about what message you are sending about being dependent on their phone, and about respect for the rules and wellbeing of the school community. What do they really need phones for during the school day and is that going to help or harm their learning and that of others? Think about the reasons the ban has been brought in.

If they will have ipads on them, can you set up Whatsapp on the ipads? You can then message or call them if necessary without their smart phones, & no need to buy each a brick phone.

You'll probably find that the iPads provided are so locked-down that you cannot add any apps other than those used for school work. My children are at an 'Apple' school - I think that the scheme is brilliant and enhances the childrens learning but the iPads are only really useful for school work - they can not access youtube, iplayer, snap chat etc.

So DC who aren't allowed smart phones at school will have unrestricted access to ipads all day? Someone somewhere hasn't thought this through 🤣

You are choosing to track your children, there is no legal requirement for that. If your kids have dumb phones they can text you to let you know if they are held up. Generations of kids managed to get to and from school every day with telephone boxes being the only way of making contact. You are making the problem.

Some of us didn't even have phones at home, so couldn't make contact at all when I was at school.

The harm that smart phones do to children massively outweighs any 'benefit' that isn't achieved by them having a brick phone.

Don’t encourage them to hide their smartphones. You’re telling them school rules don’t apply to them and they will be the ones suffering the consequences when they inevitably get caught out.

have the schools provided guidance on how they are going to enforce this?

If only it was as simple as a child answering their phone! Trackers are brilliant and can be hidden in bags and shoes traced to their parents devices. Old style mobiles don’t have tracking on them and if your child is busy playing with mates past their time to be home it saves worried parents! You know the kind of world we live in these days isn’t particularly a safe one.

Children are safer than ever and the vast majority of people on Mumsnet got to school and back without being tracked.

This is so untrue. The number of children harmed by people they do not know has remained static for decades. What has changed is the perception of it being more dangerous. All the tracker does is tell you where your child or their bag or shoe is located. If they are in danger it doesn't make you able to get to them any quicker. At the moment children are growing up fearful of the world and with no resilience because adults tell them what a dangerous world we live in. Teach your children how to deal with situations in an age appropriate way. Older children will just leave the bag with the tracker in the library or somewhere else you would approve of, and just go off to have fun elsewhere. You are being very naive if you really think a tracker keeps a child safe.

You haven’t thought it through! iPads in school are locked down. You can’t install extra apps and the screens can be tracked throughout lessons.

It really depends where you are located. in a city/town with good mobile reception? brick phone is great.
Rural, and taking public transport? smartphone needed, tracker as an emergency solution. there are a lot more places with free wifi than with mobile phone reception around, and if trains aren’t running (happens approximately monthly), you need to be able to get into contact to collect!

My DS starts secondary (independent) in Sept and there is an outright ban on phones being taken in. It is out of town so kids are either dropped by parents or get the school bus service. They are a MS Showcase school so they all get a MS surface device but this has significant restrictions .

Brick phones are really cheap. We’ve just bought one new for £25. I’m thrilled about this! Think banning smartphones is fab.

Exactly this. I teach in a school where all the students have iPads and not only are the downloadable apps restricted, but I can individually restrict what apps they can use when they’re in my room. It’s set on a timer. So if we need to do research I can allow the internet browser, but if we’re simply doing writing I can block everything but Microsoft Word for the next 40mins. I can also open an app on my iPad and immediately see the screen of every student in front of me. There’s also a button on that app where if I press it, all their screens go blank, so I get their attention.

It is not even remotely the same as them having access to their phones throughout the school day.

NSPCC - Your child is 66% more likely to come to harm online than be abducted in the street. Get a grip, OP

Working in primary I'm fascinated by this. We have about 16 ipads for the whole school (we do have chrome books too but these are mostly malfunctioning with no battery life at the moment). I've never seen anyone use software that connects the whole class (when we've been lucky enough to get everyone on a device) and every lesson there's something backfiring on some device or another that isn't set up the same way as the others 😂. We get tech support for the whole school once every 2 weeks... matters can be raised remotely in the period between but, given you're generally class facing the whole day, this can't be done easily. This isn't particular to the school I'm working in at the moment either. I've literally never seen tech work smoothly. Even at training sessions! If I could choose to never use tech in a lesson again, I would!

I won’t be buying anything different, they have a phone to use when outside school gates. If I need them when at school I’ll call the school.

Firstly, do not encourage your child to hide a phone. You are undermining the school tiles as well as the experts who have show. The damage phones are doing to children socially, mentally and academically.

Do you actually know what the policy is in September? Most schools will have pouches that lock down phones for the day or hand in stations. Do you really need to track your child during the school day? It’s seems extreme.

The school cannot dictate what phone your child owns and has access to outside of school. Just send them in with their current phones turned off in their bag. If they don’t want them to have it they can collect them in at the start of the day and pick them up at the end. Or get the pouches. Which is what most schools are doing. I certainly wouldn’t be buying new phones on a schools say so. Absolutely ridiculous

Life360 have tile trackers and no need for phone. It depends on where you are base but good for backpack with £300 iPad or laptops and expensive music instruments being rented etc and not losing them on buses, Tube, trains.

We only got the whole school rollout last session so it’s still early days, but other than the ‘human error’ problems (having to teach pupils how to use the tech, pupils rocking up with iPads flat- we have charging stations- pupils forgetting them altogether) for the most part it’s going really smoothly. They are SO much quicker and more reliable than our old clunky netbooks.

The app blockers require them to ‘join’ your class, so some of them do try to get away with not joining, but I can see who’s in and who’s not so if they don’t join, I make them put the iPad away. They only have to do it that one time then they’re in your class till you delete it at the end of the year. Other than that they work really well.

I’m finding them brilliant for managing SEN as they’re a great leveller.

It’s always a bit scary bringing new tech into the classroom, but I’m mostly finding positives so far.

On the point of this thread, it also totally negates the parent argument of ‘schools get them to use their phones in lessons anyway’ arguments, cause anything that might have been a little useful for them to do with their phones we can now do on the iPads, without the drawbacks of TikTok, Snapchat, WhatsApp, YouTube and brainrot games.