Schools also know that enforcing such a ban is anything but straightforward. In February, research by Birmingham University found that staff at English schools with “restrictive” smartphone policies – those that require pupils to turn phones off and place them in a bag or hand devices in – spent more than 100 hours a week enforcing those rules. That’s the equivalent of a week’s working hours for three full-time members of staff. Researchers concluded that at a potential cost of £94 per pupil, enforcement was a “huge drain” on already stretched resources. The question then is, will the government increase school funding considering this reality?
This is the mad idea, beloved of authoritarian nut jobs everywhere that smartphones should be banned in school. And having suggested that, its ‘job done, trebles all round’ and onto the next idea, but it seems enforcing that is going to be quite the task. Not that that's their concern, after all.
The problem of enforcement will not magically disappear. Some teachers, too scared or tired of the disruption that will come when they ask for a pupil’s phone, will continue to “tactically ignore” the ping of WhatsApp notifications.
Well, that’s a disciplinary then, isn’t it? Punish all the teachers for the infraction of one, you know it makes sense, eh?
A head of year working at a school with a “restrictive” smartphone policy told me of the typical reactions of pupils caught with their phones: “denial and resistance”, “verbal abuse” and “serious hostility”. They spoke of one colleague who was forced to “lock themselves in their office” when confronted by a raging student demanding the return of their phone.
Then there were the students who carried multiple phones so that when challenged by a teacher, they could offer up a decoy and appear compliant with school rules.
They've allowed the children to dictate to the adults for so long that this cannot get off the ground. And you can’t rely on the parents, who are often every bit as violent and ignorant as their spawn.
In another school, an assistant head recently told me that a parent, furious at the school’s confiscation of their child’s mobile, called the police.
And it’s all for nothing anyway:
While schools can curb the use of phones during the day, they are powerless to enforce those boundaries beyond the school gates. Pupils compensate for their daytime sobriety with heavier phone use at home.
It is to laugh…
When smartphones started appearing, I joined numerous colleagues in appealing to the head to permit only ‘dumb’ phones without cameras or internet on school premises (not least because of the safeguarding risks they presented in changing rooms etc). His response was that he had ‘looked into it’ and all phones now had cameras so we had to allow them - a blatant lie but symptomatic of his deference to aggressive lobbying from parents.
ReplyDeleteSeveral years on, a new and stricter Head instituted a ‘box it’ policy which ensured phones were locked away for the duration of the school day, only to be challenged by my Head of Department (a strong believer in ‘nurturing’), who insisted it was necessary for pupils to be able to take photos of white boards or their own work and brought in several parents and a county SEN advisor to back up her claims.
As long as senior staff can’t or won’t see the problems or are unable to stand up to parents, any kind of control or ban is going to fail.
I always thought it strange that cellphone jammers were illegal in this country. It would solve a lot of problems in prisons - and also schools.
ReplyDeleteThe alternative would be to run cellphone sniffers to detect use and report instances use...
Of course there would also have to be discipline that was seen as 'inevitable'.
The principle here is fairly standard from our governments over the last 30 years.
ReplyDeleteMake a rule or law about something.
Make a different organisation pay for it by making them hire people or pay for third parties to enforce that rule or law.
Costs go up.
People are employed in government mandated non jobs.
It doesn't work but service is down, costs are up but more people are working in low paid jobs.
Government pats itself on the back for a job well done while real issues that governments should be dealing with go untouched.