andy_b Posted January 23 Posted January 23 Ofsted to check phone policies and 'tougher' guidance coming: https://schoolsweek.co.uk/ofsted-to-check-schools-phone-policies-and-tougher-guidance-coming-dfe/#comments-start Ofsted being responsible for checking phone policies is an interesting thing...
SamBrooker Posted January 23 Posted January 23 There's a school in my area where they have introduced phone pouches at the start of the year that get locked with your phone in. The phone must go in the pouch that every student has, and can only unlock it at the end of the school day. See how long that will last for.
msi_school Posted January 23 Posted January 23 I don't understand phone pouches. At a school with phone pouches students are permitted to bring phones to school but h e must be in a pouch, if a phone is seen outside of the pouch the student is in trouble. How is that changed if I replace the pouch with the students bag?
DalekSec Posted January 23 Posted January 23 9 minutes ago, msi_school said: I don't understand phone pouches. At a school with phone pouches students are permitted to bring phones to school but h e must be in a pouch, if a phone is seen outside of the pouch the student is in trouble. How is that changed if I replace the pouch with the students bag? IIRC The pouches are locked via magnets that can only be opened at certain points?I had simular going to a gig couple years back
msi_school Posted January 23 Posted January 23 4 minutes ago, DalekSec said: IIRC The pouches are locked via magnets that can only be opened at certain points?I had simular going to a gig couple years back Yes but the outcome is the same if the phone is seen the school take action, my method saves the school from buying hundreds of pouces and the students from buying tens of strong magnets.
NegativeKillDeath Posted January 23 Posted January 23 7 minutes ago, DalekSec said: IIRC The pouches are locked via magnets that can only be opened at certain points?I had simular going to a gig couple years back Yes they are locked in a similar way to security tags on clothing. We have them here and I was initially very skeptical but they have proven to be positive. You will get the hand full of repeat offenders as you do with any policy but the real gains are with the "middle behaviour" kids who now have the temptation to check their phone removed. 1
paulkerton Posted January 23 Posted January 23 9 minutes ago, DalekSec said: IIRC The pouches are locked via magnets that can only be opened at certain points?I had simular going to a gig couple years back They're no different than the security tags that you'll find in any clothing store. All it requires is a student to invest about £30 on Amazon.
2ilent8cho Posted January 23 Posted January 23 Our Head asked me this week if we could get mobile phone signal blockers because of this. I said yes, but it is illegal to do that and its unlimited fine and up to 2 years in prison and they can use a a method called foxhunt to track them down if it's reported. He's backed down on that idea now. 1
BOOT Posted January 23 Posted January 23 Doesn't virtually every phone have parental controls that can be configured to limit use during the school day?
paulkerton Posted January 23 Posted January 23 16 minutes ago, BOOT3988 said: Doesn't virtually every phone have parental controls that can be configured to limit use during the school day? Everything has parental controls. But parents don't use them, and this is why we have this massive push for everyone to upload their ID to prove their age on various different kinds of sites. Started with the adult mucky muck and next it'll be social media.
Rob_D Posted January 23 Posted January 23 6 minutes ago, paulkerton said: They're no different than the security tags that you'll find in any clothing store. All it requires is a student to invest about £30 on Amazon. I guess it's about providing enough friction to make it not really worth it. How many fewer times are you likely to check your phone if you have to unlock something to get to it vs just dipping into your bag and grabbing it. And if you want to go that rout why bother buying a neodymium magnet when you can apparently unlock youndr pouches with a pencil. Youndr (who seem to be leading in the space at the moment) really push to make sure the pouch is part of a overall strategy with good buy-in from staff and parents they seem to be very much about the pouch being part of a holistic approach. The impression I got for the guy at BETT was that they wouldn't just sell into a school who's plan was to stick all the phones in pouches and hope that fixes "the problem", but rather work with them to come up with a plan that might actually work. While I'm still decidedly in the "It's only going to work if you have a good, well enforced policy. And if you have a good well enforced policy then do you really need the bags?" camp, but I see a lot more stories of it being heralded as a net improvement than it failing.
NegativeKillDeath Posted January 23 Posted January 23 The thing about the pouches is it makes it very clear that the phones must be in it. Kids will come up with all sorts of excuses as to why they have their phone out of their bag e.g. taking pictures for photography. It then becomes much harder to be consistent. Pouches reinforce consistency. There had to be buy in from the teaching staff too who had become used to being able to ask a student to do something on their phone (photography, find music tracks etc). 2
msi_school Posted January 23 Posted January 23 1 hour ago, NegativeKillDeath said: The thing about the pouches is it makes it very clear that the phones must be in it. Kids will come up with all sorts of excuses as to why they have their phone out of their bag e.g. taking pictures for photography. It then becomes much harder to be consistent. Pouches reinforce consistency. There had to be buy in from the teaching staff too who had become used to being able to ask a student to do something on their phone (photography, find music tracks etc). This is not a student problem, this is a staff problem, they all know the rules and that they are not allowed to use phones for X,Y,Z tasks. If a phone is seen out the student should be sanctioned and if a member of staff approved the use they should be asked to justify the use of a phone. The issue is certain staff don't want to enforce these rules and certain SLT will not back up staff who do and sanction staff who do not. The rules are too difficult to enforce is not a defense in most areas of life so why is it acceptable in the classroom? 1
paulkerton Posted January 23 Posted January 23 (edited) 2 hours ago, Rob_D said: I guess it's about providing enough friction to make it not really worth it. How many fewer times are you likely to check your phone if you have to unlock something to get to it vs just dipping into your bag and grabbing it. And if you want to go that rout why bother buying a neodymium magnet when you can apparently unlock youndr pouches with a pencil. Youndr (who seem to be leading in the space at the moment) really push to make sure the pouch is part of a overall strategy with good buy-in from staff and parents they seem to be very much about the pouch being part of a holistic approach. The impression I got for the guy at BETT was that they wouldn't just sell into a school who's plan was to stick all the phones in pouches and hope that fixes "the problem", but rather work with them to come up with a plan that might actually work. While I'm still decidedly in the "It's only going to work if you have a good, well enforced policy. And if you have a good well enforced policy then do you really need the bags?" camp, but I see a lot more stories of it being heralded as a net improvement than it failing. I totally get where you're coming from, but I've been working in too many schools over the years to not expect an enterprising child or parent charging £2 each to get your phone out the pouch and they will only need 15 to be in profit. Its hard to forget the images of the parents pushing fish and chips through school fences because they were upset at the Jamie Oliver healthier foods in schools push! Edited January 23 by paulkerton 3
flipthebit Posted January 23 Posted January 23 (edited) Providing guidance for parents on how to set up parental controls per OS might be useful (a web page or video). Parental controls can be effective if a parent takes control. One part of this is looking like you're trying to do something about this issue. Phone bags at least look like you're trying. Edited January 23 by flipthebit 1
ITGuyNW Posted January 26 Posted January 26 BBC now reporting this Ban phones throughout the school day, Phillipson tells teachers - BBC News Do any schools allow students to use their phones for MFA and if you do, what are you going to do now?
3s-gtech Posted January 26 Posted January 26 We do, but it should only kick-in when logging on offsite. 1
DrCheese Posted January 26 Posted January 26 I am utterly fed up of them announcing this whenever they want the news agenda to move on. This is what, the 4th time the govenrment have announced this now? The Tories announced it a few times. The media should do it's job and just repost clips of previous edu sec's saying the same thing whenever they try to wheel this out as new. 2
chris11256 Posted January 26 Posted January 26 17 minutes ago, ITGuyNW said: BBC now reporting this Ban phones throughout the school day, Phillipson tells teachers - BBC News Do any schools allow students to use their phones for MFA and if you do, what are you going to do now? In our case we see no change. Students are only prompted for MFA when logging in offsite. So they'll continue to use their phone for MFA purposes. Although we'll supply tokens to any student that doesn't have one. 1
DrCheese Posted January 26 Posted January 26 Yes - Getting off my soapbox in the previous post... We have 2fa for all students despite having phones banned for years. Students can register externally & of course it's not required in school. We do support them tho, so if they get stuck they're allowed phones out in the IT office to get registered. For students without mobiles, we keep a stock of £15 hardware tokens in that we can use, but we don't advertise these unless needed. 1
jthompson Posted January 26 Posted January 26 For Google Workspace, there's no 2FA bypass for onsite sign-ins, so we've had to avoid enforcing it for students. That was even before we introduced Yondr pouches. I'm hoping that someone either in government or oppostion will soon announce their intention to provide free YubiKeys for every child. There must be some reason why that announcement has been delayed for so long. \s IMHO, the phone pouches are an example of how a 'good enough' barrier being deployed at scale can bring about a decent result. Yes, individuals can have a secret phone or buy a big magnet, but most won't bother when there's a bit of a network effect with all of their friends also having to bother with the same.
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