Phones

[TeaCoffeeCakeGinWine]

I teach at a secondary school where I am becoming increasingly convinced the students are completely and utterly addicted to their phones. Without fail, every lesson, I have to tell several of them to put their phone away or confiscate at least one phone. Some of them are actively playing on them but many are just ‘checking’, like they physically cannot not look at it for an hour.

This morning I was on duty at the front gate as the kids were coming into school. I decided to do an impromptu survey and count how many of them were either on or carrying their phones when they walked past me. In the 10 minutes I stood there, I counted 46 children carrying their phones in their hand. This was probably out of approx a couple of hundred. They weren’t making calls, some were walking and typing but many were just carrying them, like they couldn’t be parted from it.

It struck me that this has become an insidious and quite sinister issue in our schools. I would say phones are seriously getting in the way of learning and a significant proportion of the next generation will have a serious phone addiction problem. Today I saw it clearly for the first time and it frightens the life out of me.

One thing our new Trust masters have done is implement a ban on phones in school. Not in class, not in corridors, not in playground. One warning, then it's gone. They refuse and it's a serious sanction.
It's bloody lovely, it's taken at lot of the stress out of classroom management.

Last year, we introduced zero tolerance of phones. Previously, they weren't allowed in lessons. Now, not allowed to use on the premises. Obviously, some do, but we no longer have them all glued to their phones through lunch and break - they speak to each other!

I was at a ping pong competition last week. There were about fifty parents there enduring the ping pong and there was no mobile signal. It was like being in some sort of disaster film. People talking about the signal and what network they were on and people checking every fifty seconds to see if there was a signal (there wasn't) and going outside to see if there was a signal.

I'm not saying that ping pong is enjoyable but you'd think we had been trapped underground for a year the way people were carrying on.

I carry my phone into school.

My school’s policy is that they can use their phones in the playground, but not in the school building. They can use WIFI but accept that most sites they want to use are blocked. They are welcome to use school computers for social time (but most sites are blocked).

Because we are quite accommodating, I haven’t really encountered any abuse in lessons.

David Baddiel has started comments about kids not noticing what's going on around them because they are glued to their screens.

DM link, sorry.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5623579/Despairing-parents-share-hilarious-snaps-millennials-ignoring-nature.html

Savoy that probably tells us why the kids are like they are! Sounds horrifying and hilarious at the same time!

Ohwhat and Cynderella- are parents supportive of that policy? I feel that is what is needed at my school. I have realised that a hell of a lot of the behaviour management I am doing in school is related to phones. And kids seem quite confident to just say ‘no’ when you try to confiscate. I dream of phones being totally banned! And actually think it would be hugely beneficial, in fact I feel it should be a national thing, this will be the new obesity crisis, I really believe that.

Blanktimes... seeing that makes me want to lock my kids in the house forever and throw everything with a screen off a cliff! I can do that, right?!!!

The adults in my workplace aren't much better! I'm based in a department where we can't have phones on us, and can be disciplined and sacked for doing so. Other departments I visit and they are glued to their phones. It's a wonder how any work gets done!

In my school we have 'bring your own device' a encourages the kids to use phones on the school WiFi as research tools.
Luckily 4G doesn't work there and the WiFi has blocked Instagram and snapchat etc. I very rarely have to police it.

We run DofE expeditions from our school. We say they can bring one phone in the group, in a sealed bag, for emergencies (v common policy).

We have parents asking what their children - who are ages 14/15:

• are going to do for music
• how they will wake up in time without an alarm clock
• how they will cope not taking photos & documenting them on social media;
• how the parents will cope not having a good night text and a message in the morning saying they are safe

And much more.

Parents are enabling their children's attitude IMO. It is utterly ridiculous and we will be adding a specific 'Mobile Phones on Expeditions' Policy

I wish this particular genie could be stuffed back into its bottle!
It’s ruining my school, and I am the bad mother at home with my ridiculously old fashioned views as well.

Phones banned in my school- they get handed in every morning and locked in a cupboard (each child has their own folder) and they go through a metal detector afterwards before entering the building!

It's been pretty game changing for us as staff.

We're seeing the screen time effects in primary. We have more than one child with an addiction.

Children on the whole are getting jittier and jittier and I absolutely believe it's the screen time.

We haven't had any parents complaining about our mobile phone ban. They are allowed to have their phones, switched off in their bags. I'm sure they use them out of sight on the field or in the toilets, but they're confiscated if seen in class or on corridors.

They can go to the office if they need to call home, but few bother. If a phone is confiscated more than once in the school year, parents have to come in to collect. I don't confiscate many any more!