London Oratory complete mobile phone ban even on long commutes

[Goldie1990]

Interested to hear from any current parents - how can there not be an outcry about this? With an intentionally pan-London intake where many commutes easily exceed an hour, it's the last school that should have this policy. Yet it's one of only a tiny number I can find that doesn't even permit brick phones - and it's deliberately extended to the entire school journey, making it an offense to have so much as a Nokia on hand during a transport emergency.

The head's rationale at the open evening was that there is far more danger on a smartphone these days than there is for an 11-year old crossing London by themselves. While that argument may be debatable, it breaks down completely when applied to brick phones. New guidance from DfE even recommends schools with large commuter populations to consider workarounds like handing in brick phones/keeping them switched off in their bag throughout the day. Even trackers with SOS call buttons are banned - all you're allowed is a basic tracker to see where they are (but with no means of contacting them).

Which school if you don't mind me asking as I've only found two others - Ashcroft Technology Academy and Ark Greenwich (neither of which have many long commuters)?

Touche 😂

My son attends a sixth form on the other side of London, TBH he never calls me in the day and uses his Zip card for travel, his trains have been cancelled but he figures it out. I think the apple tag option is a great idea. Great point someone raised about there being phone boxes back in our day.

Maybe an idea would be to make him to the journey with you and then on his own when you see there are some train issues so he has some practice beforehand.

We are in an outer London borough so not area you are looking from sounds of other schools you have named. Not a leafy village feel area either

It is also Catholic with faith prioritised on admission list so also has commuters

DS is only in Year 3 but London Oratory is one of the schools on our long list. This policy does put me off a little because I would like, in due course, for him to have a brick phone for his commute to school.

Cardinal Vaughan allows them and is only one stop further up the Mildmay line if that helps!

That’s useful, thanks. CVMS is definitely our preference at the moment but I hadn’t really thought about things like mobile phone policies until I saw your thread so it’s very useful.

I do think no brick phone is too much. We had an incident this morning. 11yo had to go into school late on The train and his zip card didn’t work and had spent his emergency cash at the weekend. No other school pupils to help him and hard for an 11yo to pick a random adult at a busy station (also CJ!). He was able to call us and we managed to get him another card within 10 mins. But what would he do without a phone?

It’s just an unnecessary obstacle.

I can imagine some of these Heads would have been telling people not to use cars when they were invented too and go back to horse and cart. Banning a brick phone is just silly.

They'll be fine, I've never ever 'tracked ' my children or anyone else . Other humans will be around and presumably you have a phone so can check delays .
Or choose different school

How did kids manage before smartphones? They did.

Really? Oh come on, we had public phone boxes. We don’t have those now. I had to use them often when I was a child catching the train or a bus, and there was an issue. It was probably at least a weekly occurrence. You know the other time I used it? When I was harassed by a man at a train station.

It’s not for tracking, it’s so they have the ability to contact somebody in an emergency or when public transport is cancelled.

If you do not like the school’s policy, choose another school.

That may well be what we end up doing, but that's not really the point of the thread.

In this environment I would be pushing back hard on this a brick phone is a sensible compromise

My son goes on sen school transport i would send him with a phone but he couldn't use it in an emergency so he has my name and number for the assistant or driver to use in an emergency no way would I allow him unsupervised and unsupported

OK but if something bad ends up happening to a kid at one of these schools due to not being able to contact a parent, then it will end up in the press and the schools will get the blame ultimately, including this kind of head teacher. So it is madness to not allow a parent to decide to have a brick phone during a commute. And I bet like all state schools their own IT interfaces that they use for the kids aren’t perfect anyway. At DS school there are lots of parents in IT always emailing into the school letting them know how to upgrade the systems so the kids can’t access X, Y and Z.

For what it's worth, our secondary banned all phones (and smartwatches etc) outright this year. They don't specifically state phones are banned on the commute, but effectively they are, because they are not allowed on the school premises and there is nowhere to hand them in. (I'm completely against this. I think brick phones are a reasonable compromise for commute convenience and should be allowed.)

However, I've assumed part of the reason our school chose this option is that most students live within a couple of miles.

I'm curious where you found the following: "New guidance from DfE even recommends schools with large commuter populations to consider workarounds like handing in brick phones/keeping them switched off in their bag throughout the day." The only guidance I can find states that schools must ensure that students cannot access their phones during the school day, and they would at least need to be in the locked pouches in their bag to achieve that.

I don't blame my school for adopting this policy. I blame the government and think it's up to parents to contact their MP to try to change the government policy to allow brick phones turned off in bags. I can understand the school not wanting to spend money on pouches or lockers, or time on handing phones in and out at the beginning and end of the school day, but instead spend the money and time on learning, especially if they anticipate another government might roll it back in the nearish future. (I'm not even pro or against the current government, I just think this particular policy was rushed through without consideration of its practical consequences for schools, students or parents.)

My best advice is to look for phone boxes along the route, as I have found that now that I look for them, there still are a few around, not on our particular route, but maybe you'll be luckier than us.

Also, I think our school probably also is dealing with it by slightly turning a blind eye to the fact that students might have them switched off in their bags. They aren't actively searching bags or anything, it's just that if phones are seen or heard, they are confiscated and the student gets detention. And so I think many students are just brining phones anyway. Unfortunately, my kid is also one of those who adamantly refuses to do so on the grounds that he feels he should follow the rules, and I can't really argue with that.

I do wonder if sometime something preventable will happen to a child due to the policy and then it will make the news and get reversed.

I would write a strongly worded legal letter to the head and governors stating that you consider it a safeguarding risk to not allow any means of reasonable emergency communication on a long commuter route in a capital city with heightened criminal and terrorism risks and that they are on notice that if something should happen to your child as a direct result you will be pursuing them personally for negligence for a reasonably foreseeable event. And then see what happens, because none of them will want to take that responsibility anyway and they will have to record receipt of the email. In our school, a grammar, the parents would have done similar ages ago and not played ball to whacko policies for many commuting children.

Our school allows phones off in bags.

If it's really an emergency someone nearby will have a phone and parents can keep an eye on train app for canx. There will be hundreds of other pupils travelling.

I think this is over the top. I am a secondary teacher and we now have lockable phone pouches that are locked am and unlocked on the way out. Inner city school and loads of kids use them for bus pass etc. Not seen a single phone out this year so seems to be working.

This in line with at least one other large secondary close to the oratory

There aren’t the many phone booths available that there were in the 90s when I was commuting to school on the tube and could call mum with a phone card if I was running late or wanted to go for coffee with friends after school. however, now he could just ask in a shop if emergency- ensure he has parents and school numbers written down even better memorized.
you don’t need an a-z for one commute that is the same every day.
are pagers still a thing so at least you can send them a message? Or are they allowed to check email at the end of the day or email you at lunch time if needed?

Which one is that? And does it have a London-wide intake?