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

[Koldov]

2 minutes ago, Andrew_C said:

A level was an example. 

 

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

 

No, just add it in to the Computing Curriculum, which I imagine has a slightly less intense 'scheme of work' at KS2.

I mean, I'm not sure how far down the 'CIA mind control de-programming' road @mavhc was proposing, but I think they could afford the odd lesson being given over to the 'dangers of the internet' etc.

I doubt missing programming a 'sprite' to go round a maze occasionally will impact their prospects of a future career in rocket science.

[mavhc]

1 minute ago, Koldov said:

 

No, just add it in to the Computing Curriculum, which I imagine has a slightly less intense 'scheme of work' at KS2.

I mean, I'm not sure how far down the 'CIA mind control de-programming' road @mavhc was proposing, but I think they could afford the odd lesson being given over to the 'dangers of the internet' etc.

I doubt missing programming a 'sprite' to go round a maze occasionally will impact their prospects of a future career in rocket science.

I was thinking more addiction services, plans to reduce usage, knowledge of why it's addictive, substitution of another activity.

 

Schools should react to the modern world, they teach kids about sexploitation, the dangers of sharing explicit images, that people online may be fake, how to spot misinformation. Are they just avoiding the more complex problem, or it is too new to have filtered into lessons yet?

[NegativeKillDeath]

10 minutes ago, mavhc said:

I offered a suggestion that someone who knows about addiction, psychology and technology should be hired by the government to look into the problem.

 

No you didn't, you snarkily suggested that teachers should be teaching addiction avoidance techniques as if it was the easiest thing in the world to do. 

 

Quote

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

 

[Rob_D]

 

4 minutes ago, mavhc said:

I was thinking more addiction services, plans to reduce usage, knowledge of why it's addictive, substitution of another activity.

But before you can teach them about all that stuff you need students to put down their phones and pay attention in class. I wonder how we could do that?

[Koldov]

6 minutes ago, mavhc said:

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

 

 

Is it though? That's my point, why is it a school problem? There's no phones in school = not a school problem.

 

6 minutes ago, mavhc said:

"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."

 

Sure, replace phones with cigarettes/vapes, alcohol, drugs, p0rn, or whatever the issue is... it's not THE answer, but imho it's part of the answer.  You can't tackle an addiction whilst the user is actively using.

[Koldov]

10 minutes ago, mavhc said:

plans to reduce usage

 

You could reduce it by 8 hours a day.

[dmj]

50 minutes ago, Koldov said:

 

No, just add it in to the Computing Curriculum, which I imagine has a slightly less intense 'scheme of work' at KS2.

 

"being responsible, competent, confident and creative users of information and communication technology" is literally part of the KS2 curriculum already.

IMO the problem seems to be that schools treat mobile phones differently than ICT resources, when infact the only major difference is the lack of filtering on the devices

[dmj]

here's a good doc about it

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7c576be5274a1b00423213/PRIMARY_national_curriculum_-_Computing.pdf

use technology safely, respectfully and responsibly; recognise
acceptable/unacceptable behaviour; identify a range of ways to report concerns about
content and contact.

 

 

[Koldov]

43 minutes ago, dmj said:

"being responsible, competent, confident and creative users of information and communication technology" is literally part of the KS2 curriculum already.

 

Yeah, absolutely and I think that @mavhc is correct when saying it's all a bit new for it to have been fully integrated into any kind of curriculum.

 

43 minutes ago, dmj said:

 

IMO the problem seems to be that schools treat mobile phones differently

 

Unsurprising really, I mean from a school's IT staff perspective, we wouldn't have any trouble taking a child's school owned and provided Chromebook and locking it down, filtering it, monitoring it, even setting appropriate usage times etc. We know when they logged in, how long for, what they searched for on the internet, if anything untoward happened...

 

Then you've got personal mobile phones (which none of us want to touch with a bargepole)... you can't get involved with their personal device any more than as you say, put it on a filtered Wi-Fi (which they can turn off and use their mobile data instead)...

Edited June 20, 2025 by Koldov

[dmj]

23 minutes ago, Koldov said:

 

Yeah, absolutely and I think that @mavhc is correct when saying it's all a bit new for it to have been fully integrated into any kind of curriculum.

 

 

Unsurprising really, I mean from a school's IT staff perspective, we wouldn't have any trouble taking a child's school owned and provided Chromebook and locking it down, filtering it, monitoring it, even setting appropriate usage times etc. We know when they logged in, how long for, what they searched for on the internet, if anything untoward happened...

 

Then you've got personal mobile phones (which none of us want to touch with a bargepole)... you can't get involved with their personal device any more than as you say, put it on a filtered Wi-Fi (which they can turn off and use their mobile data instead)...

It sounds like ownership, rather than device size, is the issue. I guess this will be solved when 1) phones can run desktop apps. 2) Schools provide phones for students

Edited June 20, 2025 by dmj

[Koldov]

Not to mention the content they may already have saved to their phone and the trends like filming teachers and peers without consent and posting the content online.

 

From the Schools Week article:

 

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/why-and-how-ormiston-is-joining-the-phone-free-movement/

 

"The success of ‘banning’ phones from some of our schools has convinced us it’s not just right but has broad community support, so we’re taking it trust-wide"

 

"Phones are handed in by students at the start of the day, kept in a locked box and then returned when school ends."

 

"It’s been a huge success."

 

I wonder if anyone has any more up to date statements from the Trust on whether it has proved successful in it's wider Trust rollout.

[HarryMonkey]

I remember a few years ago at one of the schools I worked, the pupils in one class were told that as they'd been good during registration, they could have 15 minutes on their phones. Cue all the kids heading to sit be the  window where they could get a 4G signal and the teacher just letting them get on with it. 🙄

[machy]

23 minutes ago, dmj said:

It sounds like ownership, rather than device size, is the issue. I guess this will be solved when 1) phones can run desktop apps. 2) Schools provide phones for students

Most modern phones, of any quality, do seem to have some sort of desktop experience.

And given the overwhelming majority of work is done in office apps or a browser, were halfway there

hah

 

[Koldov]

My $deity... way to make me feel old!

 

I can't stand much more than scrolling through FB or occasionally searching the internet for something specific on a phone, let alone having to do anything even slightly work related like using an office app!

[dmj]

Just now, machy said:

Most modern phones, of any quality, do seem to have some sort of desktop experience.

And given the overwhelming majority of work is done in office apps or a browser, were halfway there

hah

 

Agree. 15 years ago it was considered 'radical' for schools to support BYOD laptops, and most of those issues had been solved 10 yrs ago. I suspect the same will happen with phones. 

I'd like to think the govt might help with that, but the press/public are keen to see every bit of technology overly regulated (I'm thinking from bicycles on pavements to electric scooters to phones)

[machy]

1 minute ago, Koldov said:

My $deity... way to make me feel old!

 

I can't stand much more than scrolling through FB or occasionally searching the internet for something specific on a phone, let alone having to do anything even slightly work related like using an office app!

Hah

 

Its not a bad experience on a 22" monitor with proper mouse and keyboard 

[mthomas08]

2 hours ago, Koldov said:

 

Is it though? That's my point, why is it a school problem? There's no phones in school = not a school problem.

 

Key point right there.

 

We banned phones maybe 7 years ago and rarely get them in our door.

 

Pre-ban = every 2-3 weeks or so we get dragged in to an investigation. Why? because it may have happened on site = school responsibility.

Photos.

Videos.

Social media.

Parents.

Police.

Social workers etc.

 

99.9% of that gone.

 

Should we educate them better? absolutely but not my role. We can all say it shouldn't be like this, but it is.

 

I shouldn't be sitting here doing 50% of what I do just to avoid that 1% chance.. but .. it is the way of things.

 

The mobile ban didn't magically fix everything, it did however cut down the issues directly relating to phones. Considering how behaviour hit meltdown in the last 2 years, I think it removed all doubt.

 

Not every school is the same. Some don't need it. Some might try other things.

 

Considering the amount of visitors we have to help improve our problems, I don't think the mobile ban has been questioned.

[mavhc]

3 hours ago, Koldov said:

 

Is it though? That's my point, why is it a school problem? There's no phones in school = not a school problem.

 

 

Sure, replace phones with cigarettes/vapes, alcohol, drugs, p0rn, or whatever the issue is... it's not THE answer, but imho it's part of the answer.  You can't tackle an addiction whilst the user is actively using.

There's no cigarettes in school, so kids having nicotine addiction isn't a school problem? Except when the set off the fire alarm, or can't concentrate on their work, or steal money, or run off site to smoke

 

You can tackle an addiction though, that's the main point to make. 

[jthompson]

1 hour ago, mthomas08 said:

Key point right there.

 

We banned phones maybe 7 years ago and rarely get them in our door.

 

Pre-ban = every 2-3 weeks or so we get dragged in to an investigation. Why? because it may have happened on site = school responsibility.

Photos.

Videos.

Social media.

Parents.

Police.

Social workers etc.

 

99.9% of that gone.

 

Should we educate them better? absolutely but not my role. We can all say it shouldn't be like this, but it is.

 

I shouldn't be sitting here doing 50% of what I do just to avoid that 1% chance.. but .. it is the way of things.

 

The mobile ban didn't magically fix everything, it did however cut down the issues directly relating to phones. Considering how behaviour hit meltdown in the last 2 years, I think it removed all doubt.

 

Not every school is the same. Some don't need it. Some might try other things.

 

Considering the amount of visitors we have to help improve our problems, I don't think the mobile ban has been questioned.

This speaks to exactly what I'll be interested to see as out own ban progresses. The amount of pastoral work that's generated off the back of phone and/or social media use is pretty immense, so it'll be interesting to see how far and how fast that dials down.

 

On the matter of whether schools should be actively working to help children develop a healthy relationship with their phones rather than prohbiting their use, it could be argued that prohbiting their use, in fact, helps to demonstrate what a healthy relationship with a phone looks like. Given that schools are up against a swathe of global tech firms battling one another and aggressively mining for attention, keeping that to outside of school hours seems not all that heavy-handed to me.

[mavhc]

13 minutes ago, jthompson said:

This speaks to exactly what I'll be interested to see as out own ban progresses. The amount of pastoral work that's generated off the back of phone and/or social media use is pretty immense, so it'll be interesting to see how far and how fast that dials down.

 

On the matter of whether schools should be actively working to help children develop a healthy relationship with their phones rather than prohbiting their use, it could be argued that prohbiting their use, in fact, helps to demonstrate what a healthy relationship with a phone looks like. Given that schools are up against a swathe of global tech firms battling one another and aggressively mining for attention, keeping that to outside of school hours seems not all that heavy-handed to me.

"Phones are bad, mkay" is not the greatest lesson ever.

 

They'll still be addicted, and still have the problems of addiction, you've just forced them to go cold turkey, and completely ignored any positive attributes of having a supercomputer in your pocket

[Slarty66]

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/portishead-secondary-bans-mobiles-during-10280648

Where I work mobile phones are banned but students ignore this and it causes no end of problems for the Pastoral team.

When staff ask for student to hand them over they are met by dissent or in the worst cases students get violent towards staff.

They also use it to message their friends to arrange meeting up during classes.

And I see them calling parents to complain about the way they are being treated etc

Working in  IT we tend to walk around the school more than teachers and honestly it's a huge problem.

Teachers want them banned and I'm sure a lot of parents would back the school in a scheme such as the one at that school.

I imagine it's all down to money but it's a problem that schools will have to sort out with government help.

 

[FN-GM]

I haven't worked in a school since 2019. But when I did, phone were banned and I thought this was the norm everywhere. What changed?

[Rob_D]

This feels rather pertinent.

 

 

So perhaps taking phones/cigs/whatever away during the school day isn't about just stopping them for 8 hours a day, but showing them there's a better way to make connections and that they can just be with themselves and their friends without needing to be on their phones.

[mikeprice]

12 hours ago, FN-GM said:

I haven't worked in a school since 2019. But when I did, phone were banned and I thought this was the norm everywhere. What changed?

No idea becuase I left just before that and that was Primary anyway

but when I worked in Secondary we had a rules that no phones were to be SEEN in school

 

a certain amount of blind eyes were turned in corridors at lunch or break but not too much

 

It did help once

I was on break duty and noticed a gaggle of kids around the corridor just up from mine

specifically the Science labs

 

as I approached there was a cry of "It's Mr Price" and there was a lot of general fumbling and stuff and I saw several phone being put in bags

 

But why here when they knew someone was on duty at break - and Manglement came that way from their offices???

 

so the IT technician went along next lesson and discovered an open, non password protected wifi access point

i.e. NOT one of ours

 

 

turn ed out the Head of Science had managed to get a bunch of old laptops and an old access point and was using them in his lessons in his room

the access point had been initialised and plugged into an ethernet port in his room

naturally he didn;t set a password on it as that would make it too difficult to get the laptops connected fro his lesson!!

 

and - also naturally - the kids discovered it within a few days and started using it rather than using up they data on their phones!!

 

I was not overly popular with teh kids for that

but it did lead to a good GCSE lesson about security

 

 

 

[AlistairB1983]

On 21/06/2025 at 04:39, FN-GM said:

I haven't worked in a school since 2019. But when I did, phone were banned and I thought this was the norm everywhere. What changed?

I guess it depends how one defines 'banned'.

 

In every school I've worked out (at the time), phones haven't been permitted to be out/visible during the school day, but the phones remained in the possession of the student.

 

However this seems to be much more of a move to prevent them even coming into the building, rather than just a 'not out/visible' rule.