Phone Taken in School

Lotsafish

It was about 10 years ago

neilthefunkeone

Lotsafish wrote: »

I do agree with the no phone policy during classes and in between classes, but during lunch?!

What do they need a phone for anyway during lunch.. All their friends are around them.. Not like they are gonna be calling in a dominos for lunch..

School says no phones.. so no phones..

Goesague

That school has some cheek. You are obliged by law to send your child to school. If you do not you can be prosecuted. There is no way there is any agreement between the parents and the school regarding the confiscation of property. The parent should contact the school patron and the department of education. If a phone is removed from a child who is misusing it, the phone should be given back when the child is leaving the premises. Keeping a phone overnight is theft and the principal should be prosecuted. there are too many little Hitlers running schools and making stupid rules as if they are a law unto them selves. It would do no harm at all if they had to turn up in the local District Court and try and defend themselves on a charge of theft.

seamus

Goesague wrote: »

That school has some cheek. You are obliged by law to send your child to school. If you do not you can be prosecuted. There is no way there is any agreement between the parents and the school regarding the confiscation of property. The parent should contact the school patron and the department of education. If a phone is removed from a child who is misusing it, the phone should be given back when the child is leaving the premises. Keeping a phone overnight is theft and the principal should be prosecuted. there are too many little Hitlers running schools and making stupid rules as if they are a law unto them selves. It would do no harm at all if they had to turn up in the local District Court and try and defend themselves on a charge of theft.

It's attitudes like this that are turning our children into little scumbags, "How dare you discipline my child", etc. Start suspending children for having phones in the school and you'll see how quickly the parents will jump on board.

You have a choice of where to send your children, and no it's not a legal requirement - you can homeschool them if you don't like how the schools are run.

Oryx

I really would prefer a school where my daughter wont be at risk of having a camera phone shoved up her skirt, where theres no competition over who has the latest apps on their iphone, and where I know theyre not swapping porn vids at lunchtime. I know an amount of it will still happen after school, but thats my job to control it then. Regardless of how others feel about the safety and security of a phone, I see the problems of them as a bigger issue, and I dont see a ban as a school overstepping the mark. If phones are a nuisance (which they are) then the schools are right, and Im more reassured sending my kids to a school that is strict in that regard.

If my child had their phone confiscated for a week for breaking the rules, then more fool them, and may they learn a lesson from it.

Carolyyn

There are many sensible reasons why a school would not allow the use of mobile phones at any time as outlined above. Classroom management is difficult enough without pupils having access to mobile phones, and if they are allowed at lunchtime for example there'll always be the minority who overstep the mark.
TBH I can understand being emotional and concerned about a child unfortunate enough to have a significant ongoing illness like diabetes, but I recall kids in my school with diabetes and epilesey and a few emergencies, but the school dealt with them immediately. And nowadays schoolchildren are rarely ever unsupervised, teachers are also on yard duty during breaktimes.

robinph

I was lucky enough to last a couple of decades of normal enough life before diabetes reared it's head in my life and started messing me about. I had plenty of issues with asthma throughout childhood though and one of my freinds in primary school had diabetes from a very young age. Admitedly there was vastly different diabetes management going on back then and I've little recollection of what went on, but there certainly wasnt the possibility of calling parents during the day, not least because they would not have had access to phones to be called on themselves. We all survived though.

You do have two years in which to work with the kid and diabetes team to get them figuring out how to manage it themselves without needing to call up for every injection. I'd expect a child going to secondary school who has has diabetes for several years already to be managing it themselves. They will more than likely go and deliberately mess with their medication in the years to come still, but that is what teenagers do and you just have to support them through it, not hold their hand every step of the way.

CrazyRabbit

nipplenuts wrote: »

Re this part of your post. You need to understand why phones are forbidden.

1 To prevent disruption due to use for texting etc in class

2 To prevent theft by other pupils

3 To prevent video bullying (happy slapping etc)

And for these reasons a phone is also inappropriate during lunch. Perhaps more so.

In response to your particular query, the school has a rulebook (ours does anyway) to which the parent and student must agree at the beginning of the year. I feel the phone should be returned at the end of the day, but only to a parent.

Point 1. Fair enough.

Point 2. You can't have a car to prevent other people from stealing it. It just doesn't make sense.

Point 3. I don't see how it is morally ok to punish all children because of the rare occasion where some kid may use a phone to film bullying etc. Should we be teaching our children that the it's ok to ignore the rights of many people to prevent bad behaviour by a tiny minority of people? And these 'happy slapping' vids are often the only physical concrete evidence of assault. Removing the phone doesn't stop the bully from being a bully.

If there is a no phone policy, then point 1 is the only genuine reason.

I also agree that after a student is caught with a phone, it should be confiscated and only be returned to a parent. I don't agree with holding it for 1 week as a phone is a safety device for children, especially those who walk to/from school.

To be honest, I think it's better to allow phones in the classroom, but have a policy that they be turned off (perhaps stored in a cupboard, tabletop during class.)

byhookorbycrook

grindelwald wrote: »

After reading this thread i e-mailed the school we want are daughter to attend in 2 years time, to ask what there stance is on mobile phones as my daughter is diabetic she need a mobile with her so she can phone me at lunch to see how many insulin units she has to take.

Every school has a phone, she'd be left use it , of course.

Quality

My daughters school has a no phone policy. However I allow her to bring her phone to school with her. The phone is kept in her school bag until she finishes school and then she takes it out so that I can contact her on the way home from school.

This is great if I am running late or if I am in work and cannot get out to pick her up.

She is in primary.
She does not use the phone during school, ie lunch or breaks.

If the teacher was to take it off her because they found it in her bag, I would definitely have an issue with the teacher.

But if the teacher was to take it off her cause she was caught texting on it or had it on her during lunch then I would be annoyed at my daughter.

amdublin

Quality wrote: »

If the teacher was to take it off her because they found it in her bag, I would definitely have an issue with the teacher.

But if the teacher was to take it off her cause she was caught texting on it or had it on her during lunch then I would be annoyed at my daughter.

Scenario no 1. (where the teacher finds it in her bag) is unlikely - why would a teacher go through a childs bag for no reason.

Scenario no 2. (teacher catches child texting on it) is far more likely - which is why the school has the No Phone rule.

I cannot see a reason why a child needs a phone in school. The op (I think?) raised the point that if a teacher is mistreating a child then the child needs a phone to ring their parents.

(a) this scenario is so unlikely in this day and age it is beyond comprehension that it would happen

(b) In the very very very unlikely scenario of this happening wouldn't it be better to empower the child to either stand up to the teacher or go to the principal with their problem??? (Rather than ringing for mammy and daddy to "storm" the school?)

rainbowtrout

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

Point 3. I don't see how it is morally ok to punish all children because of the rare occasion where some kid may use a phone to film bullying etc. Should we be teaching our children that the it's ok to ignore the rights of many people to prevent bad behaviour by a tiny minority of people? And these 'happy slapping' vids are often the only physical concrete evidence of assault. Removing the phone doesn't stop the bully from being a bully.


To be honest, I think it's better to allow phones in the classroom, but have a policy that they be turned off (perhaps stored in a cupboard, tabletop during class.)

What would be the purpose of a child having a phone in a classroom when it's switched off? It serves no purpose during the lesson. If they were to get sick a call would be made from the school to the parent to tell them what happened.

Bullying through the use of mobile phones is widespread. I was the poster who mentioned the lad who was sticking his phone under girls skirts to take photos. It's not just the photo/video aspect of the phone. Kids use texts to bully. We've seen a couple of cases where one student was made a target by a group and received 30 or 40 text messages, all from different numbers, all nasty and abusive, and of course because all students use pre-paid phones all anonymous as well.

We've also found students previously texting each other in class and arranging to meet other students in the toilets for a smoke etc on the pretext that they were going to the toilet. It doesn't look suspicious when one student leaves a room, but if one is leaving each class in a year group to meet up, and doing it several times a day, I would hope that parents would prefer that students were not wasting their time trying to get out of class to doss with their friends.

CrazyRabbit

rainbowtrout wrote: »

What would be the purpose of a child having a phone in a classroom when it's switched off? It serves no purpose during the lesson. If they were to get sick a call would be made from the school to the parent to tell them what happened.

Bullying through the use of mobile phones is widespread. I was the poster who mentioned the lad who was sticking his phone under girls skirts to take photos. It's not just the photo/video aspect of the phone. Kids use texts to bully. We've seen a couple of cases where one student was made a target by a group and received 30 or 40 text messages, all from different numbers, all nasty and abusive, and of course because all students use pre-paid phones all anonymous as well.

We've also found students previously texting each other in class and arranging to meet other students in the toilets for a smoke etc on the pretext that they were going to the toilet. It doesn't look suspicious when one student leaves a room, but if one is leaving each class in a year group to meet up, and doing it several times a day, I would hope that parents would prefer that students were not wasting their time trying to get out of class to doss with their friends.

Leave the phone with the teacher then. Store in a cupboard or something. My point is that there is valid reason for kids to have phones and banning them completely from school also means they can't have them on the way to/from school if walking.

I still don't like the reasoning of "Phones can be used for bad reasons so don't let kids have phones". It's a workaround, not a solution to the core problem.

rainbowtrout

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

Leave the phone with the teacher then. Store in a cupboard or something. My point is that there is valid reason for kids to have phones and banning them completely from school also means they can't have them on the way to/from school if walking.

I still don't like the reasoning of "Phones can be used for bad reasons so don't let kids have phones". It's a workaround, not a solution to the core problem.

That's not particularly workable either, i'm not going to waste any of my class time getting 24 students to hand in phones at the start of a 40 minute class and collect them all again at the end of class, and repeat this procedure 7 or 8 times a day.

When students are in school, the staff of that school have a duty of care to that student. If anything happens to the student, the school will contact the parents.

Personally I think the idea of being contactable 24-7 is ridiculous, plenty can happen to any person with or without a phone on them. What if the battery goes dead, or the child has no credit, or loses the phone? They will survive for an hour or two. I think that a lot of this attitude stems from adults who can't live without their mobile phone and feel that being out of contact for more than an hour is the end of the world. How did these people live before mobiles?

There are very few genuine emergencies, I might see a sick child sitting outside the office a few times a week. A call is made to the parent, the parent comes in and collects the child. The fact that the child could have made the call maybe a minute earlier isn't going to get them home any sooner

Or perhaps maybe a child might need to be taken out of school because of a death in the family. Do you think it's more appropriate for a parent to send a child a text/call in class to relay the message and cause them distress, or is it better for the parent to call the school so the child can be removed from class and be collected by the parent and perhaps told the news privately?

Teachers don't go around searching students bags. If you really feel the need for a child to have a phone on the way home from school, I really can't see why the child can't be told, 'switch it off and leave it in your bag while you are at school'

amdublin

Just watching the Afternoon Show on RTE about a school where there are no rules.

This might be the type of school you are looking for OP?

http://www.youthreach.ie/trim/index.html

CrazyRabbit

rainbowtrout wrote: »

I really can't see why the child can't be told, 'switch it off and leave it in your bag while you are at school'

Well that would be the correct approach. Teaching how to responsibly use the phone is the way I would approach it to. Most people would just say "Kids won't turn them off so that won't work" and just turn to the simple method of banning all phones. So I was just offering alternatives.

CookieMonster.x

Coming from a 14 year old (Sorry if I'm not allowed post in here), I think phones shouldn't be allowed in school. Sure, I sometimes bring it if I need it in school but it's always off in my schoolbag in my locker. In my school, it's taken off for a week.
Not sure about the rights, but storming in will not make it better.

amdublin

CookieMonster.x wrote: »

Not sure about the rights, but storming in will not make it better.

Well said!

Fair play to you Cookiemonster you have wisdom far beyond your youth!

You could teach some parents here a lesson or two!

Cabaal

Lotsafish wrote: »

This would be my concern, if a child of mine has their phone on them in school then the reason would be if they needed to contact me for any reason, the school taking that phone away worries me.

I'm sure the school has a pay phone or alternatively if it was an emergency the child could use one of the office phones.

And dont say that the school provides a telephone for those circumstances because back when I was in school when I tried to ring home, sick for instance, I was told to sit down and deal with it. Or, again as was the case for me, the teacher is mistreating the student.

So your applying your childhood to now....come on. :rolleyes:
If a child wants to ring home cause they are sick they very much can.

If the school takes the phone and keeps it for a week, they are taking away that point of contact.

Not really, if you need to contact the child you can easily ring the school and the child can ring you as outlined above.

Having a phone is great but if the child breaks the rules which are in place for a very good reason then thats why the phone is taken.

If the phone is needed for emergency's then surely it should be just in the kids bag and only taken out when its REALLY needed?

Really its the week thats catching me - if I go down to the school and ask for the phone back and the school say no, then they are denying it from ME - essentially withholding MY property.

The kid broke the rules, if your kid talked in class and got detention and you went in and said he's coming home with you do you think that's acceptable as well?

Stacey.x

yerr, yesterday two people got their phone taken off them by the same teacher!!

You have to wait until the end of the day before you collect them...
But, i think you should be able to get them, after the lesson is over.

robinph

Stacey.x wrote: »

But, i think you should be able to get them, after the lesson is over.

Why? For what reason are the phones needed for during the next lesson of the day?

Stacey.x

robinph wrote: »

Why? For what reason are the phones needed for during the next lesson of the day?

well, lots of people feel the need to have their phones with them all the time.
personally, i dont, but most of the people in my class do!
Also, you may need to ring home for whatever reason.
i think its good to have a phone on you, throughout the day.

molloyjazz

I think they should not be allowed on school property at all TBH! too much of a distraction for the pupils, not to mention the teachers you have to deal with all tom foolery and theft incidents..

Leave em at home id say.. all schools will allow a child to phone home, if resonable requested.

As for storming here and there... Are you really setting your child the right example. Noithing wrong with em having a bit of respect for authority.

molloyjazz

Stacey.x wrote: »

well, lots of people feel the need to have their phones with them all the time.
personally, i dont, but most of the people in my class do!
Also, you may need to ring home for whatever reason.
i think its good to have a phone on you, throughout the day.

Maybe its good for MOST kids! i'd say you get distracted at least once a day by some tard with a phone.

robinph

I can't think of any reason that a child would need to phone home during the school day that it would not be more appropriate being done via the schools phone and contact with the teachers/ school principle/ who evers in charge etc. If the issue doesn't warrant going via those people first then it really isn't an issue at all.

You can possibly claim that a phone is needed for the walk home for safety, but unless it is then to be used to throw at someone about to attack you I can't see how it makes things safer then either.

dolliemix

Lotsafish wrote: »

Meant to read: Because I'd be sending my kids into school with a phone in case of extreme situations!

***

There are so many things wrong with this......



Really?! You think that if a teacher abuses a child then the child can wait a few hours and tell their parents?! Surely that cant really be acceptable to you?



So its only serious if the child dies? Mental and physical abuse doesn't count?




I'm not talking about situations where a child is ill and the parents are called by the school, I'm talking about situations where the teacher does not do what they should - I went to school with a student who asked to go to the toilet many times and each time was told to be quiet and sit down. He wet himself in his seat, the teacher cleaned up, sat him back down and continued on teaching. This was the same school that I had to leave because another teacher was hurling abuse at me, telling me I was a child of the devil and physically pushing me around.

So these are situations where the school is REFUSING to ring the parents, I would have loved a mobile phone.

While this is awful that this happened to you, you are going to make life very difficult for your child if you keep throwing this example back anytime a reasonable school policy is implemented.

If you have read through the whole thread, you will see that mobile phone policies are implemented for the safety and protection of all children.

Your horrific experience in the past, is not the norm thank God. You have enormous distrust of teachers as a result, which is understandable. But you need to learn to trust your children's teachers and the decisions they make, or else consider other options. This distrust and bitterness could your daughter if you're constantly questioning teacher's profession ability to deal with day-to-day situations

The school management are looking at the whole picture and they cannot base school policy around the awful incidents that happened to you when you were in school.

dolliemix

Oryx wrote: »

I really would prefer a school where my daughter wont be at risk of having a camera phone shoved up her skirt, where theres no competition over who has the latest apps on their iphone, and where I know theyre not swapping porn vids at lunchtime. I know an amount of it will still happen after school, but thats my job to control it then. Regardless of how others feel about the safety and security of a phone, I see the problems of them as a bigger issue, and I dont see a ban as a school overstepping the mark. If phones are a nuisance (which they are) then the schools are right, and Im more reassured sending my kids to a school that is strict in that regard.

If my child had their phone confiscated for a week for breaking the rules, then more fool them, and may they learn a lesson from it.

Finally a parent with some sense!

dolliemix

Stacey.x wrote: »

yerr, yesterday two people got their phone taken off them by the same teacher!!

You have to wait until the end of the day before you collect them...
But, i think you should be able to get them, after the lesson is over.

Can we get the beginning of this story? Did a teacher just come in a take two phones? :rolleyes:

Firstly the kids obviously shouldn't have had the phones in class and would have known that in advance.

Secondly were the students using the phones in class? how did they come to the teachers attention that they had their phones?

Andrew33

Lotsafish wrote: »

Now this didn't happen to me but to a friend of mine but it raises the question of what I'd do in this situation:

The schools policy is that it is a 'Phone-Free Zone', and that if a student is found using a phone it is taken away from them and kept for a week - then its given back to them.

This rule applies from the time they enter the school until the time they leave, lunch breaks included!

I do agree with the no phone policy during classes and in between classes, but during lunch?!

So my question is: What right does the school have to take away a possession of a student. And can a parent storm down to the school and get it back?

I would tend to back the school on this, and if the parent storms down to the school it just reinforces the childs belief that they can pretty much do as they please because "mummy" will sort things out if the nasty school teachers do anything like that again, way ta go parent! (and yes, I'm the parent of a teenager) and I wish schools had stricter policies on certain things like phones and make up etc.

sdanseo

As someone not yet a parent, but who has recently come out of secondary school, my 2c on this one - (so you guys can try and see it from the level-headed syudent point of view if there is such a thing)

We had a no phones on during school hours policy, you couldn't use them during lunch strictly speaking, but as you got to 5th or 6th year that was never really emforced by staff. You'd have them on anyway, but once you didn't openly use them in class (and i mean texting, checking the time was fine) the you were grand.

I don't agree with a week's confiscation, the phone should be handed back to the student at the end of the day without fail. I was without mine once, and on that particular day at age 14 had to trawl across town on two buses to meet my mother at her work, by the time I got there it was 6pm and well dark. Now if I'd got lost or missed a bus and had my mother worried sick, and which could have been easily avoided by me having my phone with me, whose responsibility would that have been?I reckon the school's, at least in part. Or worse, what if a student gets mugged on the way home etc? No kid with a phone should be let go home without it without a parent knowing they don't have it any more. These day IMO it compromises safety; theres an expectation they'll have it.

Schools are a little bit too strict in some issues, and this is one of them. There are a multitude of rules that make absolutely no sense in every school and that are constantly flouted, this is one of them. A somewhat concrete written rule is fine but only when accompanied by a bit of cop-on from teachers.