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).

If you mean The Fulham Boys School, it indeed has one of the country’s most publicised strict phone policies. But there’s a rather important difference: Fulham Boys explicitly allows certain brick phones capable of calls/texts. Its prohibition is on smartphones.

Indeed, its head has publicly discussed parents’ concerns about children travelling across London without smartphone navigation. So if that’s the school you means, it actually support my distinction: a very strongly phone-free neighbouring boys’ school has concluded that basic call/text phones can coexist with its policy.

And the DfE’s June 2026 case studies explicitly showcase the same principle: one large secondary has pupils put switched-off phones in locked pouches that remain with them, while another school with a general no-phone rule operates exemptions where parents believe a phone is needed for travel.

So it’s just to have a moan about something that doesn’t affect you in the slightest?
Oratory is a massively over subscribed school. If you don’t like their policies I can’t imagine they give a shit tbh.

Loads do homework on phones during commute. Or use screen as down time.
I’d not be happy as my Dc use the time for own choices

In my area it’s also more expensive to travel if not using phone ap.
pouches whilst in school

Well it does affect me in the slightest because I otherwise may have put them on the CAF. :-)

And I never said I expected them to give a toss about what I think.

Our school has now implemented this too OP (Mill Hill County High). It is such an irrational policy and the huge overstep has harmed the school’s relationship with parents. It also goes against what the smartphone free campaign recommends. You cannot be seen out of school hours in uniform with a phone.

LOS was one of the first schools to introduce a ban on mobile phones, if not the first. It’s been in place since the early 2000s - quite remarkable and very prescient.
How do I know this? Because my children were there from 2002 until the last one left in 2016. And yes, they had a long commute of an hour.
As the head will also have said at the open evening, if you don’t like the rules, don’t send your son to LOS.

Yes because they search bags - as do most schools.

This is a policy that has been in place for years. Presumably it is working fine. The boys survive and it’s not impacting applications or enrolment. If you don’t like the policy then know there are countless parents in line behind you waiting to snap up your place. It’s a truly exceptional school with a fantastic ethos. But it’s not for everyone.

I don’t doubt that the policy is workable - clearly generations of boys have managed it - or that LOS will continue to fill its places. But neither really answers the question I’m asking.

An oversubscribed school can have a policy that deters some families and remain oversubscribed; indeed, at least one prospective parent on this thread has already said this information may change whether they consider LOS. And “the boys survive” seems a rather low bar for deciding whether a policy is sensible.

I’m strongly in favour of a phone-free school day. What I don’t understand is why that requires prohibiting an 11-year-old with a long journey across London from carrying a basic call/text phone that he cannot access during school, when other very strict schools manage this through brick phones, pouches or handing phones in.

That’s particularly worth asking now because the DfE’s new statutory guidance specifically tells schools to consider the impact on pupils travelling to and from school where not having a phone poses, or is perceived to pose, a risk.
LOS may well have considered all of that and decided its existing policy remains preferable. I’d simply be interested to know its reasoning. “There are plenty of other parents who want the place” explains why the school can maintain the policy; it doesn’t explain why the policy is a good one.

I’m a Middle School teacher and as anti-smart phone as they come, but banning dumb phones is ridiculous.

However, I would choose another school rather than sneak a brick phone into his bag. Schools with policies like this expect ‘buy in’ from the parents and student body, and I don’t think it’s fair to knowingly choose a school when you plan to break a policy like this.

If I absolutely loved the school for him and didn’t have other options, then I’d do the AirTag thing that a PP suggested. However, if there are other, equally good options, then I would probably choose elsewhere.

FWIW, I had a 1-hour train and bus commute from age 12, without a phone because it was 30 years ago, but it wasn’t London. I don’t think I’d feel comfortable with my DC doing that commute without a way to contact me.

How do they monitor when a child has left the building after school? Are you able to ring the school and have them tell you exactly when your child left the premises?

If you cannot do that, then they can't forbid a child some sort of system that allows someone to monitor this. It's basic safeguarding.

Well you can use the air tag for that I think.

Do the school supply them?

If not, how are they going to keep kids safe by having this information?

Because if one of these kids go missing and the police are involved but the school cant even say whether they left there at 315 or 430pm, then a ball is being dropped.

If they have all these things in place (hint you'd need kids to have to swipe in and out with a card that records who uses it, where and when), then maybe they can reasonably ban kids from having contact with parents on their commute. If not, they cannot.

I absolutely wouldn't choose this school. The whole 'we managed before smartphones' is bollocks. The world has changed. There are no phone boxes, very few policemen on the beat, fewer staff at stations, nobody carries an A-Z. Adults wouldn't lend their phone to a teenager for fear of theft. Being able to contact a parent in an emergency is non negotiable. And being able to access online transport information, and use digital tickets is extremely useful /can be cheaper than physical tickets.

There is no reason for a child to have a phone during the school but there are many good reasons to have one on an hour long commute.

Frankly the school doesn’t really need to explain or justify its stance. It is a highly oversubscribed school that parents are desperate to access. Put simply, don’t like it then move on.

So you're saying that demand for places itself relieves the institution of the need to justify the rule.

That is the part I'd disagree with most strongly. Oversubscription tells you that the overall package is attractive to more families than there are places. It doesn't demonstrate that every constituent policy is sensible. Nor does it mean parents shouldn't ask why a rule exists - particularly when current statutory guidance now specifically addresses the travel issue.

My son's school don't allow them, but he switches it off and keeps it at the bottom of his bag. There are two strikes before a detention anyway, so he's presuming he is happy to take the risk at least until then.

We've ordered a Karri Messenger 2 for our younger child who walks home from primary.

This annoys me so much, we had payphone, we had phone cards and you could knock on nearly any door or go into a shop and ask to use a phone in an emergency. Now a teen would be likely to be told fuck off. There were ample railway staff to assist too.

Thanks for your thoughtful response OP.

It’s quite striking how riled up some posters are by this — I don’t mean OP, it’s others who feel personally affronted by this policy. They don’t seem to want to listen to current parents on the thread who say that it’s fine and their DC are fine.

We’re talking about London, not the depths of the countryside. If there’s transport disruption there will be alternatives. Buses, other lines. Clearly if a kid is going on a new journey you’re going to walk them through and talk about possible scenarios — and also show them where the (few) pay phones are and how to use them.

This sort of problem solving is precisely what builds resilience.

You can bet that if there had been any incident where a child was harmed for lack of a mobile phone, the press would have been all over it. They’re fascinated by the Oratory.

In any case there are very many other schools in the area. The phone policy is part of the Oratory’s particular ethos — it’s not outside it. Personally I did not choose the school for my DC but I have friends who did who were happy with it. For me, one of the criteria was sparing my DC a long and fiddly commute. Entirely separate from the phone issue.

Am pretty sure they wouldn't allow those either. They don't even allow trackers with SOS buttons that allow the child to call their parents in an emergency (because apparently one went off in class and the boy's mum started coming through asking if he was ok).

I think this is what bothers me most about the policy actually. Nobody is arguing that children need access to smartphones during lessons, or even during the school day. The Government’s approach allows schools to achieve both objectives perfectly well: a genuinely phone-free school day and children having a means of communication while travelling to and from school. A device can be switched off, handed in or securely stored during school hours.

That’s why the point about SOS trackers bothers me more than the smartphone ban itself. If a parent says, “Fine, I accept that you don’t want smartphones in school, so I’ll give my 11-year-old a basic tracker/SOS device solely so that he can contact me in an emergency,” and even that is prohibited, then this is no longer simply about protecting children from social media, screen addiction, filming, messaging in lessons or other harms associated with smartphones. None of those things requires banning an emergency communication device on the journey.

And I don't really understand the “we managed before mobile phones” argument. Of course we did, but that doesn't establish that removing a safety measure available today makes children safer or more resilient. We also had payphones, staffed stations and other ways of contacting home. More importantly, being able to contact a parent and being able to solve a problem independently aren't mutually exclusive. A child can work out an alternative route during disruption and still have the ability to tell a parent where he is, or ask for help if the situation goes beyond what an 11-year-old can reasonably deal with.

Nor does the fact that nothing terrible has apparently happened prove that the precaution has no value. Emergency communication is there for unusual situations, not everyday ones. We don't normally assess a safety measure by saying that because the emergency hasn't happened yet, the measure isn't needed.

There is also an obvious proportionality point. If the concern is that a device might go off during a lesson, the direct solution is to require it to be switched off and inaccessible during the school day, with sanctions if that rule is broken. Banning the device from the child's journey altogether solves a much bigger problem than the one that actually needs solving.

So for me the distinction is quite simple: a phone-free school is one thing; requiring an 11-year-old to make a long journey across London without any means of contacting home is another. You don't have to accept the second in order to achieve the first.

Completely agree.

By the looks of things they aren't publicising this at all (no mention in their documented behaviour policies or even in the Open Evening presentation a couple of weeks ago now available on their website). Surely this is something that needs to be made clear to prospective parents before they apply. Unlike Oratory it has a small catchment of only 1 mile but has lots of aptitude test places which I imagine extend its geographical intake MUCH further.