I don't know about the UK, but schools in the US make up one of the three categories of places where you relinquish some fundamental rights, the other two being

I don't know about the UK, but schools in the US make up one of the three categories of places where you relinquish some fundamental rights, the other two being prisons and military bases. For example, my high school in Maryland officially forbids ALL ELECTRONICS. In practice this generally only refers to cell phones and iPods, I can usually pull out a laptop and the faculty doesn't care, but they can also apply that rule whenever it makes their jobs easier. For example, I started recording classes to enhance my notes, and the school told me I must cease doing so, originally because they claimed it was an invasion of the teachers' privacy (!), then later that it was an invasion of students' privacy; but when I argued that the state law against recording people without their consent only applied to private conversations, and that no conversation could be considered private in a public place such as a school, they responded by simply saying that I can't record because it involve the use of an electronic device.