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Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free
- candiddevmike 2y agoWhat was the impetus for schools to become "smartphone-friendly"? In the 00s, phones/smartphones in class weren't a thing.
- Planktonne 2y agoTech evangelists/EdTech salespeople saying that it was the future; there's been a big push in recent years.
- wafflemaker 2y agoGetting caught using one (at least with stricter teachers) meant it was taken from you and you got it back at the end of class or even better, your parents picked it up from the principal. YMMV, but that's how it was in Poland in 2005.
- asdajksah2123 2y agoI suspect they first became mobile phone friendly. Dumbphones provided kids a way to communicate with parents and the worst distraction would be kids wanting to play snake and/or texting little messages to each other on their T9 keyboards. But once smartphones came around they replaced those dumbphones and snuck in through the same policies, but in reality they're a completely different category from dumbphones.
- moolcool 2y agoDumbphones weren't allowed in my high school, but apparently smartphones are now.
- grecy 2y agoOur society isn't equipped to handle new developments like this, and they "just happen" before anyone gives much thought to whether they will lead to bad outcomes down the road. When an immigrant who was handcuffed and tazed subsequently died in Canada, the investigation started asking questions about the use of tazers. They wanted to see the testing and data that showed they were not lethal or long-term harmful for use on humans. It turns out no such testing had ever been done. Companies just started making them, so Police forces started buying them and using them on people. To this day there is no data about the consequences of using them. Same thing for smartphones in schools and a TON of other things in our world.
- zdragnar 2y agoNonsense. I was in my teens when children getting cell phones was barely a thing, but there were already things like pagers and Gameboy and PDAs. None of those things were allowed out of your locker from the moment you got to school until you left. Children having smartphones in class is a significant deviation from the norm.
- whimsicalism 2y agoyeah I am similarly confused - i went to school in 2016, firmly the smartphone era - and phones would absolutely be confiscated on sight
- AnnikaL 2y agoBy 2019 at my high school those rules were in place but not enforced.
- rubymamis 2y agoI believe that, in retrospect, these schoolchildren will greatly appreciate this decision.
- ben_w 2y agoI can see it going either way. A century ago in the US, a lot of support for Prohibition came from the impact of liquor, yet Prohibition itself also banned beer. I can very easily believe that the backlash against dark patterns, against deliberately addictive apps (games and social media), against advertising getting squeezed into what would otherwise be normal conversations, against the surveillance that currently manifests as GDPR cookie popups because almost everyone both corporate and government would rather annoy people than stop snooping, may well lead to a new Prohibition on all such things. But will this new Prohibition throw out the baby with the bathwater? Smartphones do a lot of genuinely useful things.
- jurmous 2y agoThe Netherlands already banned smartphones from schools since January 1st 2024 https://www.iamexpat.nl/education/education-news/netherlands-ban-mobile-phones-school-classrooms https://www.iamexpat.nl/education/education-news/netherlands...
- jeffbee 2y agoMy kids' school district with 10k students has a no phones policy. Kids have to check them at the door, if they bring them. https://berkeleyhighjacket.com/2023/news/bhs-teachers-unify-against-the-use-of-phones-within-classrooms/ https://berkeleyhighjacket.com/2023/news/bhs-teachers-unify-...
- LoganDark 2y agoMy school had a no phones policy. Once I brought about five different phones, and each time they took one I would pull out another.
- wafflemaker 2y agoI know it would complicate things a lot, but are we sure it's smartphones and not social media / "not educational" websites being the issue? If I had a phone with calendar and a to do list, when at school, I might have fared better.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jwagenet 2y agoA smartphone isn’t just a calendar and todo list. I don’t think even blocking just social media is enough in schools as the devices offer plenty of other distractions.
- Mali- 2y agoYou're describing the improper use of any tool. I would have liked to bring a penknife to school to sharpen pencils, but it's probably good that they were banned.
- jfyi 2y agoCan we be sure it's social media at all? Or is it a behavior issue? Does it matter if they are watching tiktok or mucking with a calendar if they aren't participating in class? Enforcement will likely come down to don't do stupid shit with your phone or risk losing it. Ignoring class for a phone is stupid shit regardless of what's on the screen.
- vel0city 2y agoStudent planners are paper calendars and to do lists. One can have these things without a CPU, RAM, and a network connection.
- prmoustache 2y agoThere are enough offline alternative for that, including paper based. Although I keep telling her it can't possibly be good in the long term for her skin, my eldest daughter keeps writing her homework tasks on her skin.
- bcrosby95 2y ago
- leohonexus 2y agoI was curious about the legal grounds that schools have to confiscate student's phones for up to a week, and I found this document from the UK government: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/62d1643e8fa8f50bfbefa55c/Searching__Screening_and_Confiscation_guidance_July_2022.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/62d1643e8fa8f... Some things that concern me: - Page 19: Staff may examine any data or files on an electronic device they have confiscated as a result of a search, as defined in paragraph 57, if there is good reason to do so. - Page 20: In determining whether there is a ‘good reason’ to examine the data or files, the member of staff should reasonably suspect that the data or file on the device has been, or could be used, to cause harm, undermine the safe environment of the school and disrupt teaching, or be used to commit an offence. It also doesn't seem to lay out a limit on the duration for which a device can be confiscated - which makes confiscation for a week look a bit like a grey area to me. Would love to hear from anyone with more experience on this area.
- multjoy 2y agoThe school has broad powers to regulate student behaviour. Part 7 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006.
- masfuerte 2y agoLink: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/40/part/7/chapter/1/crossheading/enforcement-of-discipline-including-compliance-with-instructions https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/40/part/7/chapter/...
- grecy 2y agoAs long as the phone is locked, surely mere teachers can't force a student to unlock it.
- leohonexus 2y agoThat an official government document explicitly mentioning that school staff is allowed to search a device without law enforcement (either being present, or authorized by warrant) is problematic in and of itself.
- cedws 2y agoMy schooling experience (in London, less than 10 years ago) was a waste of time. If they want students to be engaged, make the material engaging.
- lemoncookiechip 2y agoI didn't need a phone to be distracted in class, or better yet, to cut class. Sure, smartphones can be very distracting, more so than dumbphones, but there have been rules in place for phones in a classroom since the 2000s and kids would still sneak them in, this won't change kids sneaking in anything, nor does it change the fact that you weren't supposed to be on the phone in class in the first place (or that teachers can't police it or try to). The main issue is underpaid, overworked, and more often than not, teachers who aren't properly qualified to teach (not for lack of an official paper saying they can), who can't reach troubled/lacking students, and quite frankly they don't care to or even attempt to. Earlier today someone posted this article [1], I'd love to know out of those 72% who participated on the survey, how many are teachers that students can say: "Mrs. X is one of the best teachers I've ever had. She always makes the lessons interesting and goes out of her way to help us understand the material.", "Mr. X really cares about his students. He takes the time to get to know us and makes learning fun." I'm sure a lot of you from the newer generations have experienced that moment where you turned to the internet to learn something from Youtube because the teacher in class couldn't be bothered to, or simply was inept at explaining it in a way that YOU could understand, but some random Indian guy on Youtube can. Not to say that the older generations didn't have similar experiences. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/06/12/72-percent-of-us-high-school-teachers-say-cellphone-distraction-is-a-major-problem-in-the-classroom/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/06/12/72-percen... PS: This isn't me saying that we should or shouldn't ban phone, (phones have been banned from classrooms since the start anyway), this is me saying that we have much bigger problems that are overshadowed by scapegoats which no one bothers to bring up. Why is no one talking about the fact that so many school's infrastructure is so bad that it can potentially even be a risk to your child's health, physical and mental, I.E: extremely hot or cold classrooms, poor ventilation, the bathrooms being unsanitary, etc... Why are kids 180cm+ sitting down on wooden chairs meant for kids with 40cm less? Why are kids forced to carry 10kg+ worth of books on their back every morning, (which cost a fortune btw). Why does no one talk about the food that's served to kids being terrible, not just unhealthy, but just horrible because they will hire the cheapest contract and purchase the cheapest ingredients, and often times quite unsanitary looking (if those kitchen's I grew up seeing were restaurants, I wouldn't eat there.) What about staff who won't give a flying * about your 14 year old child smoking behind the school's building, or getting bullied right there in-front of everyone and the excuse is that they aren't paid well enough to care. You can keep listing problems that honestly rank higher and contribute to your child's poor education more. Sorry for the rant.
- ilrwbwrkhv 2y agoThis is great! The UK is showing great leadership in this.
- ghaff 2y agoVaguely related: A local theater is making sort of a big deal about sealing phones and smart watches into Yondr pouches for the performance unless you go to an area where phones are allowed. I don't really care but this seems to be a solution to a problem I really haven't observed when attending local theater.
- andyjohnson0 2y agoFrom TFA: > The schools have agreed that if any phone is used by a pupil during the school day, it will be confiscated. In my experience as a parent, this is nothing new. Until last year one of my children went to a very large secondary school in the UK (not in London though). The above was the rule for all of the seven years they were at the school: if you kept your phone out of sight and set to dnd then you were ok, but if it was visible then it was confiscated. My impression as a parent is that it was reasonably well observed by students and enforced by staff. Context: We have an election here in the UK in ~2 weeks and phones in schools have been a minor moral panic issue that some of the parties are trying to use to assert their education credentials. I'm not saying there is no problem with children and phones - I believe there is - but theres a reason its getting attention at the moment.
- vidarh 2y agoYeah, same for me. I think my sons primary school had a policy of no phones, but they also had a (and this I find more ridiculous) policy of kids being dropped off or picked up, so there was no argument of them needing it to get in touch with their parents. He joined an early intake at a secondary and there they had to keep it out of sight. His subsequent schools have required them to be in lockers or out of sight on school grounds or not brought to school at all. He's been to more schools than I wish he'd needed to, and at 15 he's never been to a school (in London) where he was allowed to bring phones out other than with permission (e.g. asking a teacher for permission to call a parent, or if specific tasks were set - rarely - during lessons). As I said in another comment, I'm more surprised Southwark had this many schools without restrictions, unless this has been exaggerated and many of them already had restrictions anyway and so no reason not to sign up to this...
- prmoustache 2y agoI am suprised they allowed them at first to begin with.
- rvba 2y agoThe cool / mischevious kids will still bring phones to school, while life of the calm kids will be made miserable. Story old as time. Fascinating that people here cant predict it.
- whimsicalism 2y agoyou’re downvoted but this was my experience going to a school that “banned” smartphones
- PUSH_AX 2y agoThis is like someone suggesting murder should be illegal, and the main argument being “but some people will still do it anyway”.
- cynicalsecurity 2y agoThis is plainly idiotic. Smartphones are great for having useful apps for studying such as dictionaries and translators, they provide access to Wikipedia and means to communicate with other kids. They also make parents feel less stressful knowing they can always call or message their kids. Whoever came up with this idea is a retrograde.
- prmoustache 2y agoWhat kind of parent will call or message their kids during school hours? All the ressources mentionned can probably be accessed through other means, usually the school library which has computer terminals.
- micromacrofoot 2y agoit's incredibly common, like a quick text from the child "hey don't pick me up today I'm going to Greg's house" or a parent saying "do you have football practice today"
- prmoustache 2y agoI am just waiting for my daughter to come back home to tell her whatever I need to (or leave a note on the kitchen counter) and she does the same. Also once home, she has access to me through XMPP even if I am not there.
- ImJamal 2y agoHow did people ever survive school 20 years without such an ability? There is an easy solution that could be implemented. Kids can go to the office during lunch or a break and request their phone. They can send their message and then give back their phone.
- cynicalsecurity 2y ago20 years ago the chance that someone could steal or abuse a child on or from the way to school was way much higher. People have already started forgetting about it. No phone = no way to track back the criminal or the crime.
- giantg2 2y agoSounds like commonsense to me. This was the policy when I went to school too - use a phone during school time and it's confiscated.
- Hizonner 2y agoOverblown hysteria both makes school administrators feel useful and sells papers...
- Angostura 2y agoListening to something on the BBC the other day that I found thought provoking. The speaker suggested that the question’at what age do you give your child access to the internet’ could better be framed ‘at what age do you want to give internet companies access to your child’
- maxehmookau 2y agoI genuinely think there's a difference between young people having access to the internet, and young people having access to social media (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) Social media is designed to be addictive. Much of the internet is not. I'm increasingly in favor of banning Facebook and Instagram to under 18s.
- willsmith72 2y agounder 18s arent on facebook, and barely on instagram. that might work for 25-40 year olds though
- wisemang 2y agoReplace with TikTok or Snapchat or whatever they are using. Because they are definitely using social media. Maybe you’re playing gotcha at a poor millenial’s out of date examples but the point stands. Source: parent of high schooler.
- vidarh 2y ago+ discord. 90%+ of my sons social media use is private discord servers.
- wisemang 2y agoThe little familiarity I have with discord makes me think maybe it’s not quite as bad? More like IRC with a more modern interface, and not as much designed to be a total time and attention sink? Would be curious about others’ takes. I get kids may still spend a lot of time talking to people in there but how different is that from when my sister spent all her free time talking to friends on the phone as a teenager…
- fumar 2y agoCan the students use other computing devices like Chromebooks or iPads with restrictions in place? Overall, this is likely a success for the schools who can commit and the students willing to compromise.
- zarzavat 2y agoConfiscating phones from children for an entire week is an unhinged idea. Confiscating for the rest of the school day I can understand, but not giving them the phone back when they go home is dangerous. At some point a child will get abducted on their way home from school, or be unable to contact emergency services, because the school confiscated their phone. They seem to want parents to buy dumb phones instead for their children. Can you imagine trying to text “I’m being followed by someone on XYZ road” on a Nokia-style keyboard? Do dumb phones support sending GPS coordinates to emergency services like smartphones do? Even mundane things like what if a child’s train gets cancelled and they need to check Google Maps to find an alternative way home.
- andy_ppp 2y agoI don’t buy this argument at all, if someone is abducting children taking their phone away will be an absolutely trivial first step. I know this might shock you be there was a time before phones and everything was totally okay.
- johncessna 2y agoTypical fear mongering that got phones all over the schools in the first place. Kids aren't getting abducted or even using their phones in an emergency capacity.
- tired-turtle 2y agoCan you provide data that grounds these claims? How often are children saved from abduction by an iPhone or similar? The schools posit that the social and educational benefits of no smartphones outweigh the (purported) risks of an un-nannied childhood.
- prmoustache 2y agoThe phone doesn't do anything against abduction. It doesn't make the public transports work better either. Also, there is a thing about developing social skills to be able to do small things like asking for directions/help.
- PUSH_AX 2y agoHow on earth did any child survive pre 2000..
- teekert 2y agoWe have schools doing this in the Netherlands. Students actually report liking it because they are now more in real physical contact with their fellow students directly instead of immersed in their phone every chance they get. I think that shows that indeed it should be a rule, voluntary will not work because of something akin to the network effect. When we get interns at our company many of them, instead of communicating with us are in their phones during lunch and coffee breaks. It’s a disease, they don’t integrate, they don’t learn being social around collegeas. I don’t like most people of that generation and they never get to know me. Something has to change.
- jstanley 2y agoIt will change the same way it changed for the generations before you. The old guard will retire and the young will become old. It's the circle of life.
- gffrd 2y ago> something akin to the network effect Yes. Kids are tuned in to the negative effect of phones/social media on themselves, don't want them, but feel they can't not have them because … everyone else is on them. This is more about social media, but a research report [1] quoted by Jonathan Haidt in conversation with Tyler Cowen [2] expresses this: "Users would need to BE PAID $59 to deactivate TikTok and $47 to deactivate Instagram if others in their network were to continue using their accounts." BUT "Users would be willing to PAY $28 and $10 to have others, including themselves, deactivate TikTok and Instagram, respectively." Emphasis mine on the above two quotes. [1] https://bfi.uchicago.edu/insight/research-summary/when-product-markets-become-collective-traps-the-case-of-social-media/ https://bfi.uchicago.edu/insight/research-summary/when-produ... [2] https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/jonathan-haidt-anxious-generation/ https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/jonathan-haidt-a...
- whimsicalism 2y ago> Students actually report liking it because they are now more in real physical contact with their fellow students directly instead of immersed in their phone every chance they get. I wonder what a poll of those students would actually show
- jasonjei 2y agoI think many of the comments in opposition to this are coming from people that do not have children. Many of those in support do. I speak as a parent of a child, and I think “parent brain” will affect your thoughts on this. Having said that, I grew up on dial up and very low tech HTML. Not social media which is an entirely different beast. There is a book called The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. NYU Prof. Jonathan Haidt argues that the rise of smartphones and overprotective parenting have led to a "rewiring" of childhood and a rise in mental illness. Suicides for both teenage girls and boys are up. I’m choosing to send my kids to a school whose parents have also agreed to remove or drastically curb the use of social media. Not eliminate the creative sense of electronic tinkering.
- the_snooze 2y agoI think it comes from the "I tinkered with tech as a kid!" mindset. It ignores the fact that smartphones are about as low-friction and consumption-centric as it gets when it comes to distracting material. If you want kids to learn about tech, then do it in a higher-friction deliberate context like a desktop computer.
- altacc 2y agoTotally agree. I regularly hear that students should use tablets at school as it gets them used to technology they will use in the workplace. This is technology designed to be easy enough for an 80 year old to pick up and use, no training is required! Much better to be teaching them real work based activity & creative problem solving.
- PUSH_AX 2y agoI’m a parent. My kids are not getting smart phones for as long as I can reasonably demand it. I foresee this going into secondary school age.
- hnthrowaway0328 2y agoAs a father of a 4 year old boy, I plan to remove smart phones and pads from my son for as long as possible. He can watch TV or play console/PC games but absolutely no mobile games for as long as I can. He will get a dumbphone maybe with a snake game when he grows up a bit. In the mean time, I'll try to bring him to hiking, camping and other outdoor activities. If he is very into electronics then I'll introduce gaming and programming. I'm also considering a no smartphone policy for myself. I cannot persuade my wife who is deep into scrolling hell already, sadly.
- vidarh 2y agoMy son (15 in London) has moved schools more than I'd like and they've all had smartphone policies that ranged from "must be in your bag", via "must be in your locker", to "must be left at home". None have allowed phones to be out during school hours, or on school grounds, other than in very limited circumstances, generally with prior permission, so I'm more surprised that so many schools, apparently all in Southwark, were this lenient to start with. The one school my son went to that had a "must be left at home" policy, I think went slightly too far (many students there had a complex travel route, and parents wanted to be able to check in if e.g. they were running late), but at the other ones having them lock it in a locker or hand it in at the door didn't see to be an issue for either the students or parents, nor did many students seem to want to risk detention for taking their phone out of the bag without good reason at the school were that was policy.
- willsmith72 2y ago> parents wanted to be able to check in if e.g. they were running late) this one is just so funny to me. dumbphone argument aside, what do these parents think happened when they, themselves, were running late from school? somehow, their parents managed without a direct, 24/7 line.
- whimsicalism 2y agoteenagers back then were more likely to have a car in the US, so they could get themselves home. not so today in suburbia
- vidarh 2y agoI agree to an extent, and found it idiotic how strict they were about kids being accompanied to/from his primary school for that matter. But that secondary school was in an area where even I was skeptical about having him have no way of getting hold of us, not so much for safety, as because it'd take fairly little disruption for it to get complicated for him to make his way home in a reasonable time due to odd bus routes. And some kids have health issues - e.g. my son has struggled with various issues with his knees - where you don't want them facing a 1.5h-2h walk home if busses are messed up etc.
- hnthrowaway0328 2y agoWe are limiting TV time to 30m per day and no pad/phone for our 4 year old kid. IMO the issue is with the school, not us. Schools will inadvertently introduce pad as a learning device, and his friends will use such devices too. I hope they ban it in Canadian schools too.
- slavboj 2y agoOf course, staff are not subject to this, because while evidently a deadly poison to the 16 year old brain, they become an essential professional tool as soon as you acquire your teaching loicense.
- lupire 2y agoWhat does this need to be a collective action? Why can't a school decide on their own?
- gonzo41 2y agoWe peaked at flip phones. I remember learning to type on a typewriter. It was really fun. I loved the internals. Kids are missing out on the fun stuff and replacing it with phones. i hope we start to see change.
- Delphiza 2y agoSource: I am a parent of child who has just finished GCSEs. We live in the London commuter belt. The hope that stopping phones in school will help the mental health issues that children are facing today is a ridiculous hallucination. The second paragraph of the article states "in the hope of also addressing the downsides of their use outside the school gates". Hoping for a better result is not enough. Phones enable a level of socialisation, both positive and negative, on a scale that people who finished school as recently as five years ago will not understand. My child is a product of the covid-taught secondary schoolers and has very complex relationships with communication technology. It is not about the phones in school. It is about games, apps, social media, media, influencing, content creation, filters, pr0n, spam, bots, AI, news. Those same platforms and tools are used to bully, shame, abuse, and stalk. Whatsapp 'in' groups allow social inclusion and exclusion at a pace that would never have happened at the same rate as before. You can be in and out of a group in seconds. You can feel the pressure to have to 'engage' at 2am. The phones are the problem, but switching them off while at school will make no difference. By all means, let those schools trial it and give us the data. Adjust the results levels of family income, ethnic background, previous mental-health issues. I doubt we will see a drop in cases of teenage depression, self-harm, and suicide. The UK (and many other education systems) have a pattern of 'parental blame'. For many educators, if a child kicks off at school it is not because they are being bullied, but because their parents expose them to domestic violence. 'Phones off at school' makes all the phone-related problems the parents' fault. Forgetting, of course, that the phone is just a device that connects children to their school peers.
- rysertio 2y agoI was a student of one of these so called smartphone free schools and I used my smartphone during class time. Just because it was banned. So I highly doubt this'll work.
- Balgair 2y agoDenver School(s) of Science and Technology (DSST) have been mobile free for a long time. The kids, I am told, love it. These are public schools. Confiscated phones are required to be picked up in person by the guardian. Something that can be quite the trek and traffic fight. I am told repeat offenses are not common. Denver's public school system (DPS) is a bit unique, just FYI. All public schools are chartered, including the DSSTs. Meaning that all guardians are required to select the school that they want their kids to go to, there are no defaults. All kids get free bus passes on municipal transport. As is usual in Colorado public schooling, things get really law-y as the city and school district lines cross over county lines (cities are not entirely within counties in CO). https://www.dsstpublicschools.org/dsst-cgms-family-handbook https://www.dsstpublicschools.org/dsst-cgms-family-handbook