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).

Wow I sympathise OP I wouldn’t be choosing a school with this policy either. The school we like best so far is brick phones only for yr7 and 8 and they are locked away in the day. Smart phones allowed yr9 upwards but again locked away in the day.

I commuted on the tube and didn’t get a phone until yr9 and I remember using pay phones to call my mum but it was stressful and worrying and once I got my brick Nokia I felt a lot safer being able to call when I needed help- like when the pervy older man followed me and I called the police.

He didn't actually say that. :-)

They are still oversubscribed but this year saw their lowest number of first preference applications in a decade:

2016: 309
2017: 320
2018: 320
2019: 321
2020: 332
2021: 293
2022: 235
2023: 274
2024: 239
2025: 244
2026: 226

Mine (Samsung) links to my phone via blutooth so no phone, no watch calls! Maybe you can get ones with cellular data though!

My children’s school has a brick phone only policy. Neither of my kids can remember to charge them and we never remember to put credit on them. They need turning off at school and my kids never remembered to turn them on again so we haven’t bothered with phones at all for the last few years. My children do a commute on a line that goes kaput often though there are alternatives. They know what to do if they’re in trouble. Go into a shop, speak to someone ask for help. They have my number written all over their bags.

You have to understand the impact of phones in schools. Even brick phones can be a distraction. I am impressed with this policy.

There aren’t phone boxes on every corner, but personally I never called anyone on the way home from school, both parents were at work, how would I have got hold of them?! what could they have done?

Honestly look through every single risk - transport/robbery/falling over etc, ask yourself what the issue is with each. Then if you don’t feel your child can manage without a phone put them in another school.

Very true. Seems like a very ‘computer says no’ attitude.

It would put me off the school. Not just because of the potential safety issue when commuting across London but the fact that the school don’t appear to have the best interests of the children at the centre of their inflexible policy. By all means ban smart phones but not allowing brick phones seems OTT.

Im sure the school won’t care a bit if the OP sends their child there or not. Plenty more kids to take the place I guess will be their thought process. Again I dislike that sort of attitude.

@IzzyLengtrue, it isn’t a policy that has the child’s best interests at heart and it’s unreasonably inflexible. Our school trusts parents enough to put controls on what pupils are doing on screens in their bedrooms - screens they need in order to access the internet, school’s homework and apps…yet pupils aren’t allowed to use a brick phone on their journey home or wherever they may be going to before they reach there. The logic is so utterly utterly twisted.

I’m sure that there was a real emergency that couldn’t be worked out by your child (unlikely) someone would call you for her.
Back before mobile phones were invented we just dealt with life, and if we were late people wondered where you were until you eventually turned up.

@IzzyLengI dislike the “we are oversubscribed, so like it or lump it” approach. The school (MHCHS, not LOS) is concerned about the number of complaints from parents, wants more of a partnership, whilst appearing blind to what the like it or lump it approach does to that “partnership”. A school and all the parents are never going to fully align on all policies, but accept the general principles about disruption, behaviour, uniform, phone use in school and so on. The issues start and the partnership struggles when rigidity overtakes common sense, when sensible boundaries are breached, when a school implies that it’s pointless communicating as they’re always right, that the only real partnership they’re interested in is a nodding dog one. Many oversubscribed schools don’t behave this way.

I’d be pissed off not due to safety. My DD is ND and uses her (public) bus / tram screen time and headphones to decompress on the way home. 45 min trip.
She arrives home calm. Sometimes she does her online homework too or checks school emails and catches up with friends.
it’s her time once she’s left the gates

@Goldie1990that’s exactly what she’s saying.

It’s a matter of market forces: if you are not happy with the rule, someone else will take your place who will be happy to accept it in exchange for an excellent education for their kid.

Before cell phones there were pay phones on every corner. All children had to do was carry a coin.

my teens phone is in the bottom
of her bag in a closed pocket and it is staying there despite there being a law banning her carrying a phone to school where I live. All she has to do is not take it out of the pocket unless there is an emergency. So far, no problems.

@Araminta1004don’t be silly. 2 minutes with an AI agent and half an hour with counsel if they’re willing to pay will draft the Head a pretty water tight defence in response to such a letter.

As an aside, what’s a “legal letter”? A letter before claim threatening to take action in negligence? For negligence to arise, it’s not enough that harm occurs or that a foreseeable risk exists in the abstract. The question is whether the school acted reasonably in adopting a policy that balances competing welfare considerations.

The existence of a risk on a school journey does not place a legal duty on a school such that they must allow students to carry personal phones, particularly where the policy has been adopted following consideration of safeguarding, welfare and educational factors.

Also, some random grammar isn’t the same as the Oratory, one of the most sought-after schools in London.