One of England's largest school academies to go phone-free

[HarryMonkey]

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[DGardiner]

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i miss the old internet, it was more community focused then.

 

ye olde forums were amazing

[PotNoodleTech]

i miss the old internet, it was more community focused then.

 

ye olde forums were amazing

 

MIRC

ICQ

MSN Messager

 

Them were the days when people you met online were all friendly :/

[Ditto]

Parents need to do their part.

Schools need to do their part.

Social media needs to do their part.

Society needs to do their part.

 

Nothing is 100% but we all need to do our part...

I would add Laws need to do their job to that list.

When a parent is legally responsible for funding an estranged 20 year old adult/child, but the same child/adult can block the funding parent from knowing their educational progress, or even whether they are still attending full time education - well that law isn't helping.

 

OK - that's a bit of an edge case based on recent learnings, but the laws around the topic are important. The are at times contradictory and that can make parents, schools and society's task all the much harder.

[pete]

MIRC

ICQ

MSN Messager

 

Them were the days when people you met online were all friendly :/

 

I mean, there were less of us and it actually required some work and knowledge to do things, so the majority of the awful people were still being analogue awful but....

 

[mthomas08]

I mean, there were less of us and it actually required some work and knowledge to do things, so the majority of the awful people were still being analogue awful but....

 

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Not forgetting the bots in the thousands.... and the fake posts.. the fake links... the fake memes... the lies being spread..... just too much. Only going to get worse with tech giants duck shoving responsibility and cutting back staff numbers.

 

Problem is, all this is now flooded - particularly on Twitter.

 

My mother gets duped all the time on Facebook... the same ones constantly suffering "I've been hacked, don't accept a friend request from this fake account!!"... While she sits there constantly clicking on links.... all from the same type of dodgy accounts.

 

I feel sorry for the kids growing up in all this if they get to sit on social media all day. Worse in schools if they allow social media.... talk about 24/7 access to poison...

 

We sometimes see the repercussions with the kids.... not necessarily down to the tech influence, but more like the people in their lives...

[ITGuyNW]

Just read about this school which has introduced yondr pouches

 

Birchwood High School pupils share their thoughts on Yondr pouches | Warrington Guardian

[Ditto]

1 hour ago, ITGuyNW said:

Just read about this school which has introduced yondr pouches

 

Birchwood High School pupils share their thoughts on Yondr pouches | Warrington Guardian

It all sounds very good. Although, it hasn't led to good use of English 😂

Edited June 12, 2025 by Ditto

[NegativeKillDeath]

A friend who works in a neighboring school is just rolling out these pouches. Her year group (9) and thus tutor group got theirs yesterday. They have a last period tutor group and the unlock stations are in those classrooms. 6 of her students didn't need to unlock as they had already pried the pouches open. She fed back to the deputy head who instigated the scheme and his response was that they expected the kids to break into them and they will just sanction any kid they see with a phone. 

[Andrew_C]

1 hour ago, NegativeKillDeath said:

 they will just sanction any kid they see with a phone. 

Yeah RIGHT.  Like all the other "classroom management" problems that get swept under the carpet if it suits...

[DrCheese]

1 hour ago, NegativeKillDeath said:

A friend who works in a neighboring school is just rolling out these pouches. Her year group (9) and thus tutor group got theirs yesterday. They have a last period tutor group and the unlock stations are in those classrooms. 6 of her students didn't need to unlock as they had already pried the pouches open. She fed back to the deputy head who instigated the scheme and his response was that they expected the kids to break into them and they will just sanction any kid they see with a phone. 

 

That almost defeats the point. Just take the phone of any student who has their phone out anyway & save the cost of the devices..

[DrBeaker]

3 hours ago, Andrew_C said:

Yeah RIGHT.  Like all the other "classroom management" problems that get swept under the carpet if it suits...

 

Never seen problems with the IT caused by "classroom management" ever sorted, they're always swept under the rug.  

 

 

2 hours ago, DrCheese said:

 

That almost defeats the point. Just take the phone of any student who has their phone out anyway & save the cost of the devices..

 

But what else would they waste the taxpayers money on then?

 

[NegativeKillDeath]

15 hours ago, DrCheese said:

 

That almost defeats the point. Just take the phone of any student who has their phone out anyway & save the cost of the devices..

This was said. Unfortunately the management at that school seem to think that a problem isn't being dealt with if you can't pull an invoice with an expensive "solution" listed on it.

[PotNoodleTech]

When your spending more on a "pouch" than buying an actual 1:1 chromebook for the pupil to learn in and out of school - you know the education system is truly lost.

[dmj]

2 hours ago, PotNoodleTech said:

When your spending more on a "pouch" than buying an actual 1:1 chromebook for the pupil to learn in and out of school - you know the education system is truly lost.

Irony is that the phone is a 1:1 device, albeit with it's own data connection,  and can (samsung) or soon will be able to (pixl) just plug into a kb/mouse/monitor for a desktop computer.

[mthomas08]

"As pupils arrive at the school, they are greeted by staff who then watch each and every child put their phone in the lockable, portable pouches."

 

This one line makes me think.. there's possibly a bit of PR dishonesty here.

 

So a teacher watches each and every individual child place their phones in pouches?

We ban phones here and it's not exactly a massive problem. The kids are rarely seen with them out and we didn't rely on 'expensive' pouches.

 

We tend to have money at the end of the year but... well.. we woulnd't be wasting it on something like this.

[AlistairB1983]

29 minutes ago, mthomas08 said:

"As pupils arrive at the school, they are greeted by staff who then watch each and every child put their phone in the lockable, portable pouches."

 

This one line makes me think.. there's possibly a bit of PR dishonesty here.

I think so too. Because it's not that they watch every child put their phone in a pouch, they watch every child put a phone in the pouch.

 

My wife's school tried to do something similar and it quickly became apparent that a large number of students, primarily those who you'd want this rule to apply to, weren't handing over their 'main' phone, but rather than bought cheaper/knock off second phones to hand over instead - thus allowing them the freedom to keep using their main ones around the school (with varying levels of stealth/'botheredness', depending on the student concerned).

[Chris_Cook]

I was just thinking about the second phone option. Also I recon you could open it with a suitably sized magnet. Looks a lot like a supermarket security tag.

 

Does anyone know the price of these things? They don't look cheap.

[NegativeKillDeath]

7 minutes ago, Chris_Cook said:

I was just thinking about the second phone option. Also I recon you could open it with a suitably sized magnet. Looks a lot like a supermarket security tag.

 

Does anyone know the price of these things? They don't look cheap.

Roughly £20 per pouch I think. The school my friend works at spent £20,000 on the project and they have approx 1200 students. 

[DrBeaker]

5 hours ago, NegativeKillDeath said:

Roughly £20 per pouch I think. The school my friend works at spent £20,000 on the project and they have approx 1200 students. 

 

£20,000 of taxpayers money on what is essentially a parenting and discipline problem?

 

Salary for a TA or a good investment in some up-to-date IT kit otherwise.

 

 

[DrCheese]

Yeah.. this stuff is nonsense. It's an "IT" solution to a behavioural issue. 

 

Just have super strict policies on taking any phone that's seen out when not supposed to be out. Can be done with a strong SMT

[NegativeKillDeath]

14 hours ago, DrBeaker said:

 

£20,000 of taxpayers money on what is essentially a parenting and discipline problem?

 

Salary for a TA or a good investment in some up-to-date IT kit otherwise.

 

 

The school I mention held a whole staff meeting just before the end of the financial year to let them know that budgets were tight and they had over spent by 30K. They also had the audacity to compare it to the cost of a TA which did wonders for the current TAs morale. 

 

If I was a kid that had to put my phone in a pouch I'd make sure I set notifications on for everything and turn the volumes way up. 

Edited June 17, 2025 by NegativeKillDeath
pluralised "kids"

[AlistairB1983]

24 minutes ago, NegativeKillDeath said:

The school I mention held a whole staff meeting just before the end of the financial year to let them know that budgets were tight and they had over spent by 30K. They also had the audacity to compare it to the cost of a TA which did wonders for the current TAs morale. 

 

If I was a kid that had to put my phone in a pouch I'd make sure I set notifications on for everything and turn the volumes way up. 

That, or put a second phone in it and then ring it constantly.

[dmj]

The whole point that it's a faraday case so the phone doesn't receive a signal

[NegativeKillDeath]

9 minutes ago, dmj said:

The whole point that it's a faraday case so the phone doesn't receive a signal

I cant see any mention that Yondr cases block signal in their FAQs and a few place say they require the phones to be turned off. WJSHS Yondr – Frequently Asked Questions - Watervliet City School District I guess other brands may block signal but the most popular one I've seen is Yondr.