Mobile Phone Ban Considered.....

[ToraToraTora]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57643697
gawd frankly I'm amazed they are allowed in at all now. They should be confiscated and returned at home time the first time after that they should be forfeited and given to charity. Madness, they learn ugger ball anyway these days without talking rowlocks on Twitfacegram all day, madness.

[barry1010]

I'd go even further and say that the only phones that pupils should be allowed to take in to schools are 'dumb' phones with no camera. Calls and texts only in case of emergency to / from school.
Although like many people in my age group my parents didn't have a telephone until long after I'd married and left home, so I couldn't have phoned them no matter what the emergency.
Ludicrous that children are walking round with phones worth hundreds of pounds in some cases.

[ichkeria]

“ I'd like to see calculators banned too.”

Good grief, you plainly don’t have school age children!
Calculators have been an essential past of school equipment for decades.
I always remember the first time a fellow pupil brought one into class (in a wheelbarrow), the teacher scoffed - but by the end of the lesson he sheepishly asked to borrow it ;-)

[ichkeria]

Let’s bring back mortar boards, the cane and work experience up chimneys while we’re at it :-)

[dannyk13]

Agree that calculators should not be banned, but mobile phones definitely should,they are a distraction.

[naomi24]

You have no idea about my life, Ichkeria. Even though, in my opinion, calculators do nothing to 'educate', I am aware that they have been used for decades - but I would rather children be taught to use their brains.

[sherrardk]

Maybe their parents could teach them when it is an appropriate time to use a phone (ie not in class). Imagine the time used to confiscate and return phones to pupils.

[naomi24]

11:54, stupid comment.

[naomi24]

//Imagine the time used to confiscate and return phones to pupils.//

Some schools here do it, sherrard. It doesn't seem to create a problem. The kids just put their phones in a box as they come in to class and collect them before the go home.

[ichkeria]

Do you seriously think banning phones in school would stop children bringing them in?
At the risk of sounding like a cracked record, they are already strictly controlled, and far better to have that process operated by the school, than dictated to by central government: phones are always going to be in schools. A grown-up approach to this is to manage their use. And guess what, it already happens

[ichkeria]

“ The kids just put their phones in a box as they come in to class and collect them before the go home”

Exactly: all with it any help from Mr Williamson. That presumably is a primary school

[naomi24]

I've no idea who you're talking to, ichkeria, but see my post at 12:00. That works. The children have their phones to and from school - so emergencies are covered - but during the school day they don't. I think that's a good compromise.

[ichkeria]

Yes that works at primary schools (it would not work at a large comprehensive say).

But my point is - for the umpteenth time, schools already control phone usage.it’s bit helpful for the education Secretary to propose this and what’s more I can guarantee it will go nowhere

[ichkeria]

“Not” helpful

[Prudie]

I don't believe for a minute that phone use is controlled in every school. It makes my blood boil to read posters accusing others of being dinosaurs and wanting the cane back etc. Absolute proof that they have never in their life stood in front of a class of teenagers and tried to teach them something and probably something they could no more do than fly.

[gulliver1]

[email protected], I can just imagine a classroom full of kids reciting Cockney rhyming slang.
... Do not bring your Dog & Bone to school.

[ummmm]

They were banned in my kids school. They'd only give them back to a parent/carer.

[bednobs]

Eerrgghh I have a nine year old and dread all this shizz, which I'm sure is coming soon :( our school sent out an email the other day as one of the pupils had lost their iPhone in school. Crazy! Even I can't afford an iPhone for me and I'm a grown up with a ft job!

[Sunk]

I have not seen Williamson’s data showing a correlation between bad behaviour and phone use.

Probably because there isn’t any.

[bednobs]

As to Naomi's daft comment about calculators, how do you propose that kids learn about trigonometry and other scientific functions? Yes you CAN use a slide rule I guess but what a waste of teaching learning time when no one except for weird purists would use it in real life

[Sunk]

// Phones can become an obsession - in fact they are for a lot of people, especially young people - and that's not healthy. //

Firstly they are not Phones, they are mobile computers.
Smart phones are very useful to whoever owns them, schoolchildren or business men.
Anyone, young or old can become obsessed with their device. But most users won’t. It will not send them bonkers. It will not distract them fro the work to be done.
All the charges are bogus, politically motivated and bonkers.