mobile phones in schools - yay or nay?

Jlawson118

I think they should be allowed, but to contact parents in case of emergencies.

I left school in 2012 and there was a zero tolerance on phones. But looking back now, I can understand the ban within the classroom and completely agree with it. But I don't think they should be banned at break times. I can remember a girl's mum had rang her one dinner time and she ended up getting her phone confiscated.

A fair example of why I think phones should be allowed to contact home. My school went cashless, to pay for dinners, our parents would top up an account and we'd pay by our fingerprint. My mum would usually top up around £40 per month. Some days I'd discover in the morning that my account was running low and I'd have to quickly text my mum to top it up for me before she went to work. Without that device to contact her, I'd have more than likely been left without dinner.

I know the counter argument to that would be "Contact the office to contact your mum." But there was often a queue, but it was a lot easier to just drop a quick message myself rather than queueing up, then school putting the phone call in a queue etc.

But I do also think there is a safeguarding thing there with schools too. They don't want students to be 'advertising' their devices to potential thieves. And a fair few students in schools are like that. I had two phones stolen in school within the space of a week, and after that I never took one in again.

dekaspace

To me, the best thing would be to somehow block data for phones that way they could just be used for phoning would be good, but that would be almost impossible to impliment plus legally dubious.


So it comes down to a no win situation.

Lioness_Twinkletoes

Ergates wrote: »

That presumes they're in school and not on their way to or from school, or in some after school activity.

Use a phone box?

Red-Squirrel_2

Lioness_Twinkletoes wrote: »

Use a phone box?

They’re almost all gone.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40934210

SingleSue

Paparika wrote: »

Why would a child need to have a mobile phone in school.

If they need to contact the parent you do it via the school office and if parent needs to get a message to child same principle.

I can not see ANY reason why a child NEEDS to have their phone on in a classroom.

All very true, until it is needed.

Mine are no longer at school but we had one very serious safeguarding incident purely because the school omitted to contact me regarding an early finish of an in holiday exam prep session.

Their reasoning was that every child carries a mobile (despite them being banned by the school) and that he could have given me a call. The issue with this is that youngest was a phone phobic, complex autistic, didn't go anywhere without being accompanied student, a fact they were very well aware of.


I turned up my usual 10-20 minutes early to do the pick up to find youngest cowering behind a wall, horrendously distressed and completely alone beside a very busy road. It put his progress with being outside independently back months (more like a year - I'd just managed to get him to go in the front garden on his own for a minute or so and after the incident, it took another year before I could get back to the same stage again).


The school were lucky that day, normally he would run blindly in a panic to find somewhere he felt safer and it is was only pure luck that he didn't do that that day as the only direction he could have run in would have been into the road.


I could have understood it if it was a teacher who didn't know my child very well, or didn't know that he didn't carry a mobile phone but it was his English teacher, his head of year and also someone who had been in a meeting a day or two beforehand where it was discussed that he was phone phobic and didn't carry a mobile!


We've had a complete turnaround now, he is at university and to leave halls/lectures/workshops/any time he is outside, he has to be on the phone to me at all times to feel safe...he now loves his phone as it gives him a sense of security.

Robisere

First I will address the"genuine emergency" to be dealt with by the school. That did not happen in my gson's case when he was injured in a PE 'lesson'. NO supervision, he broke his foot and his pals had to go looking for a teacher, who was found in the cafe! Single dad had left his work and mobile numbers, it took them so long to find them that gson had remembered our home number and had them call me. I took him to hospital and stayed with him until dad came after work. I also played merry hell with the staff I met, and later made an official complaint to the Governors and the LEA. Point being: the school had banned mobile phones, but if my gson or one of his classmates had been able to bring theirs, he would have been at the hospital very much sooner. As it was, he did not get treatment until well after 7 pm.



Secondly: his cousin, my 13 yo gdaughter is at a grammar school and has a very good mobile phone, which her school allows, in order to download pertinent educational material to the phone and link it to her laptop at home, for homework. Pupils are NOT allowed to use the phone for anything else and the phone will be confiscated if the system is misused.


In addition, she lives 8 miles away from school in a rural area and has to be driven to & from school by mum, dad or me. She has various after school activities: dance, Guides, music. These mean that she will often be late on dark or bad weather nights, and will need the phone to call whichever one of us is "on call." The school fully understands this and appreciates that she will not be hanging around school after hours, requiring a teacher to wait with her.


Perhaps this enlightened attitude is one big reason why gd is achieving A* results?


There are differing individual ways of dealing with every issue: as individual as every school, its location, its educational records and the staff and pupils there.

LilElvis

phryne wrote: »

Apparently what's happening since the ban is, the kids are actually talking to each other during breaks instead of sitting there individually glued to their devices.

So that's third hand reporting from your friend's teenage sprog? Hardly a reliable source.

Ergates

Lioness_Twinkletoes wrote: »

Use a phone box?

When was the last time you saw a phone box?

Ergates

RichardD1970 wrote: »

I'm not allowed my phone at work. Technically it's not allowed on the shopfloor even if in your pocket and can only be used at designated break times. Anything else is a disciplinary offence.

So, in fact, you are allowed your phone at work (how else could you use them on a break)- just not on the shop floor whilst working. That is an important distinction.

I don't think anyone here is advocating that children should be able to play with the phones whilst in class, just whether or not it's a good idea to have a blanket ban from having them in school at all.

onomatopoeia99

Ergates wrote: »

I don't think anyone here is advocating that children should be able to play with the phones whilst in class, just whether or not it's a good idea to have a blanket ban from having them in school at all.

Teachers certainly have a problem with students that are allowed to have them in school using them in class when they are not supposed to, according to my friend the secondary school teacher.


The students then play the "I need it for emergencies" card like many here advocate if confiscation is threatened, disrupting the class further.