Headteacher's Blog #31

A letter will be sent out to all parents today to confirm our new policy around the use of mobile phones in school. Feedback from our parent consultation before half term demonstrated the concern that the vast majority of parents have regarding mobile phone use in schools, but it was also clear that most of you want your children to be able to have mobile phones in school. I understand that young people have bus passes on their phones and use their phones for homework, I also understand that you want to be able to communicate with your children on the way to and from school; A total ban is therefore impractical and undesirable. Following our consultation, I met with the Headteacher at St Bede's Catholic High School, and we agreed on an area wide policy:

 

• That mobile phones are 'banned items' and that they are only not banned when they are turned off and in a young person's school bag.

• That mobile phones used during the school day will be confiscated and returned after school on a fixed day of the week, after the student serves a detention.

• That students who refuse to hand over mobile phones will remain in isolation or in extreme circumstances, be suspended until the mobile phone is confiscated.

 

Schools are about young people communicating with each other, learning from their teachers and developing the resilience and discipline that will make them successful in later life, mobile phones play no part in this. Schools need to remain phone free environments as ultimately this will make our young people happier, reduce safeguarding risks and maximise learning time. We will need your support. If you send you child into school without a school bag but with a mobile phone then we will have to confiscate their phone, this will bring conflict and will undermine our policy. We also need you to speak to your children and talk them through this policy, ultimately it is their duty to follow these rules and if they don't then this is their responsibility, we have tried to keep our policy very simple. 

Next year there will be new guidelines on uniform and mobile devices, and we will be developing routines that keep young people safe and reduce conflict and lost learning. All of this is designed to make our young people successful; it is why we exist. Every penny spent on implementing uniform rules,  mobile phone guidelines and out of lesson poor behaviour is money that we can't invest in support for all of our students, especially the most vulnerable learners in our school. In the end simplifying and enforcing fundamental school standards allows all young people to achieve more at school, I look forward to your support in our endeavours. There will be tantrums, tears and defiance but ultimately the impact will be a better school for the whole LSA community, a school that will make us all proud to be LSA.