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

[HarryMonkey]

35 minutes ago, dmj said:

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

I thought signal blockers were illegal.

 

[AlistairB1983]

11 minutes ago, HarryMonkey said:

I thought signal blockers were illegal.

 

They are, as per the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006.

[dmj]

1 hour ago, NegativeKillDeath said:

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.

Can't they just use paper bags then?

[dmj]

46 minutes ago, HarryMonkey said:

I thought signal blockers were illegal.

 

signal Jammers are illegal, ie sending out data on the same frequency to overwhelm the provider is illegal.

A signal blocker, ie a bag, fence or wall is not illegal. 

[NegativeKillDeath]

Just now, dmj said:

Can't they just use paper bags then?

 

1 minute ago, dmj said:

Can't they just use paper bags then?

How else are they going to get rich off the public purse? 

[PotNoodleTech]

13 minutes ago, NegativeKillDeath said:

 

How else are they going to get rich off the public purse? 

 

Become academies?

[Rob_D]

55 minutes ago, dmj said:

Can't they just use paper bags then?

Isn't the main point that they're locked so as to remove temptation. Like those restaurants where you put your phone in a safe for the duration of the meal.

[jthompson]

This thread makes for interesting reading.

 

I, too, had assumed that the Yondr pouches were Faraday bags, but it seems that they're not, they're just a physical barrier to hands and eyeballs (and therefore the almost involuntary, habitual checking of a phone). Our school has recently deployed them. The big advantage is that it allows the school to effectively ban phone use duing the social times and not just in lessons. Some instances of dummy/burner phone use to try to circumvent it, but sanctions are in place to respond to that. It'll be interesting to see what the effect of it will be on the workload of pastoral staff in the coming months.

 

Without the physicality of the pouch, I can't see how enforcing a phone use ban throughtout the entirety of the school day would be feasible (YMMV). A "leave it at home" policy seems unrealistic, in my view, given the number of legitimate uses for them out in the real world.

 

I do wonder whether in the long term (years) we'll see smartphone ownership drop off amongst younger cohorts coming up through a school system that has had bans in place since before they might otherwise have been being given a phone: an attenuation of the network effects at play.

 

 

[mikeprice]

On 16/06/2025 at 11:46, 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.

 

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.

so - if you have clever kids

they might think that when Dad upgrades his old phone - or any other opportunity arises where an old phone may be lying around unused and un-noticed

then there is an opportunity to grab a phone and be seen to put it in the pouch

and then have their own phone available in their bag whenever they want

 

I mean - the kids I taught may not have always got good GSCE result

but that would have occurred to them in about 10 minutes!!!

 

not exactly fool proof - well - it is fool proof - but not devious kid proof

[mavhc]

If only schools were in the business of teaching children they could teach them to use the items in their world effectively and techniques to avoid addiction

[TechMonkey]

29 minutes ago, mavhc said:

If only schools were in the business of teaching children they could teach them to use the items in their world effectively and techniques to avoid addiction

You mean like alcohol, drugs, gambling, spending? There are lessons in those things and yet it still happens.  I agree that education is the way but what do you move or drop to cover this? When you have companies with more money than some countries developing systems to be as addictive as possible how do you counter that?  The issue is not simple so simplistic 'solutions' don't work.

[mavhc]

1 hour ago, TechMonkey said:

You mean like alcohol, drugs, gambling, spending? There are lessons in those things and yet it still happens.  I agree that education is the way but what do you move or drop to cover this? When you have companies with more money than some countries developing systems to be as addictive as possible how do you counter that?  The issue is not simple so simplistic 'solutions' don't work.

Surely school is where you learn complex solutions, not simplistic ones.

 

Point is it's not magically going away, they're still going to be addicted if they're not taught by professionals how to use defend yourself against psychological attacks.

 

The solution is find the best people to create a system to fight back, and then deploy it en mass using the traditional educational system of lesson plans, textbooks, training etc.

 

What did we drop to add other new subjects?

[mikeprice]

1 hour ago, mavhc said:

 

What did we drop to add other new subjects?

This is always the problem with new "initiatives" in schools

a school has 5 or 6 lessons a day and a certain number of weeks per term

 

to add a new "subject" to this then someone has to remove something

maybe remove teaching is Henry 8th from History or whatever

 

I would agree with removing phones from class most of the time

I certainly never allowed them to be out in my class when I was a teacher but that was a few years ago

 

but having a place to safely keep them should be part of a help to the solution

another part of the solution should be looking at harmful effects of devices of all type

but that would have to be inserted into the GCSE syllabus - which means removing something somewhere and it would be another topic in the exam where the teachers can tell the pupils they are almost certain to have some sort of question on this

 

when I taught proper GCSE I could tell them about 3 or 4 questions that politically had to be on the paper in some way or other

 

anyway - I'm woffling

[Koldov]

 

 

3 hours ago, mavhc said:

If only schools were in the business of teaching children

 

When did an academic/educational establishment that was designed to teach children what 2+2= become a replacement for parental control and the failing moral and ethical standards in society...? We need to cater for an ever growing SEN provision, an increasing EAL provision, family workers doing Social Workers jobs, increasing poverty, providing wrap-around care, food parcels, home visits, off-site (at home) safeguarding, 1-2-1 device provision... now WE need to teach THEM that scrolling through Tik-Tok for 10 hours a day is bad... m'kay....?

 

2 hours ago, TechMonkey said:

You mean like alcohol, drugs, gambling, spending? 

 

Don't forget we also need to teach kids how to brush their teeth, use the toilet, how to hold cutlery...

 

1 hour ago, mavhc said:

Point is it's not magically going away, they're still going to be addicted

 

No, but removing the phones means then at least for 8 hours at school they get some respite. If they get home and are on them solidly for the next 8 hours that's not a school problem, that's a parental control problem.

 

Because the parental responsibility of creating a well rounded, good natured, functioning human being = zero these days...?

 

 

[TechMonkey]

2 hours ago, mavhc said:

Surely school is where you learn complex solutions, not simplistic ones.

 

Point is it's not magically going away, they're still going to be addicted if they're not taught by professionals how to use defend yourself against psychological attacks.

 

The solution is find the best people to create a system to fight back, and then deploy it en mass using the traditional educational system of lesson plans, textbooks, training etc.

 

What did we drop to add other new subjects?

 

But your solution is not a complex one, it is a dumbed down, oversimplistic, soundbite, one liner, headline of a solution. No, it will not magically go away or be wished away by hand waving with solutions like teach kids not to get addicted to things. It definitely won't be solved by pointless trolling or snarky remarks that seem to show a surprising lack of understanding of the educational setting for an EduTech.

[Ditto]

47 minutes ago, TechMonkey said:

 

But your solution is not a complex one, it is a dumbed down, oversimplistic, soundbite, one liner, headline of a solution. No, it will not magically go away or be wished away by hand waving with solutions like teach kids not to get addicted to things. It definitely won't be solved by pointless trolling or snarky remarks that seem to show a surprising lack of understanding of the educational setting for an EduTech.

Harsh, even brutal, but I'm afraid I have to 100% agree. 

[Koldov]

Maybe they should bring back Grange Hill (a la Zammo's heroin addiction)... Just say no, kids! That'll work... 🙄

 

To be fair though, you wouldn't have to drop anything, it could/should be incorporated into the general IT/Computing Curriculum somewhere.

Edited June 19, 2025 by Koldov

[Rob_D]

21 minutes ago, Koldov said:

To be fair though, you wouldn't have to drop anything, it could/should be incorporated into the general IT/Computing Curriculum somewhere.

Or PD/PSHCE as it's less technical and more "life skills".

 

Either way it's not like there's lessons where the kids aren't doing anything, so you'd wind up having to replace something currently being taught.

 

[Andrew_C]

28 minutes ago, Koldov said:

it could/should be incorporated into the general IT/Computing Curriculum somewhere.

Do you realize how tight some schemes of work are?  Within subjects, if you want to add anything, something else gets dropped.  We're looking at a new A level provider.  They've added space and cosmology, but dropped electronics to make room.

Edited June 19, 2025 by Andrew_C

[Koldov]

1 hour ago, Rob_D said:

Or PD/PSHCE as it's less technical and more "life skills".

I’ll check, but I’m not sure if our kids have any lessons like that.

 

1 hour ago, Andrew_C said:

We're looking at a new A level provider.  

I think I’d envisaged it being introduced slightly before A level… something like, say KS2… 

 

[DrBeaker]

It is slightly humorous there seems to be a big dichotomy between the use of tech and wanting to use it e.g.

"kids are on their phones all the time, we need to lock them away so they can concentrate in school"

and

"technology is the future, we need to embrace it"

 

It seems like the education sector is kind of confused itself at the moment with all this.

 

 

[Koldov]

Use it, don’t abuse it? Everything in moderation? It can be an aid to education, enhance experiences, vast amounts of information at your fingertips (like books… but without having to buy them)… but it can’t be the destination (just yet)

as we are a product of what ‘they’ want us to be. Imagine Ofsted looking at things like poor SATS results in reading, writing and arithmetic and being told ‘that’s ok, they don’t need that… they can do it all on their phones these days’…

[Andrew_C]

A level was an example. 

 

At KS2, what are you going to give up?  3x table? Verbs, but keep nouns?

[mavhc]

19 hours ago, TechMonkey said:

 

But your solution is not a complex one, it is a dumbed down, oversimplistic, soundbite, one liner, headline of a solution. No, it will not magically go away or be wished away by hand waving with solutions like teach kids not to get addicted to things. It definitely won't be solved by pointless trolling or snarky remarks that seem to show a surprising lack of understanding of the educational setting for an EduTech.

I didn't offer a solution, I offered a suggestion that someone who knows about addiction, psychology and technology should be hired by the government to look into the problem.

 

The snark was that apparently no one's bothered to do it yet, instead they're spending millions avoiding the problem. You'd think schools would think of education as a solution to the problem, not phone prisons

[mavhc]

19 hours ago, Koldov said:

No, but removing the phones means then at least for 8 hours at school they get some respite. If they get home and are on them solidly for the next 8 hours that's not a school problem, that's a parental control problem.

It's back to being a school problem the next day.

 

"No, but removing the cigarettes means then at least for 8 hours at school they get some respite. If they get home and are on them solidly for the next 8 hours that's not a school problem, that's a parental control problem."