We are having pouches for students mobile phones is September ,

We've been gradually rolling out the pouches for a couple of years, year group by year group, so from September everyone up to and including Year 11 will have them. There's been a massive drop in the numbers of students being given detention for phone use so it does seem to be working.
There are obviously exemptions for medical reasons, eg diabetic students who need their phone for monitoring purposes, but those students don't seem to be taking advantage.
 
labtech666 said:
There are obviously exemptions for medical reasons, eg diabetic students who need their phone for monitoring purposes, but those students don't seem to be taking advantage.
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I find the idea of using a phone for medical reasons disturbing. There's been diabetic monitoring devices for years but now seems to be pushed onto a phone. If a kid smashes their phone during the day and their bloods go low/high?

I don't understand how we let that happen.
 
Alman said:
I find the idea of using a phone for medical reasons disturbing. There's been diabetic monitoring devices for years but now seems to be pushed onto a phone. If a kid smashes their phone during the day and their bloods go low/high?

I don't understand how we let that happen.
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We have one kid here who is diabetic and they have a seperate low tech phone (might just be a reciver for the pump honestly) for monitoring bloods and then they hand their actual phone in like all the other kids.

With regards to if it gets broken they can use finger prick testers until they get home that the policy here and we have a kit with everything they could need including spare dexcoms and finger prick testers fro glucose and ketones. The kit is related to the kid so nothing is shared if we did have antoher kid who also had diabetes but we onely have one at the moment.
 
Wonderleah said:
We have one kid here who is diabetic and they have a seperate low tech phone (might just be a reciver for the pump honestly) for monitoring bloods and then they hand their actual phone in like all the other kids.
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I mean this was sorta my point, as these already well exist. Regardless of a physical testing kit which they should also have and even kids having them on their persons (like before wearable monitors or apps exist).
 
Alman said:
I find the idea of using a phone for medical reasons disturbing. There's been diabetic monitoring devices for years but now seems to be pushed onto a phone. If a kid smashes their phone during the day and their bloods go low/high?

I don't understand how we let that happen.
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Probably because it's a cheaper way to increase computational power and display quality while minimising the amount of tech that needs to be worn directly on the body. I only have second-hand experience but I'm pretty sure that for the person I know their pump alarms directly to alert them if they have to check their bloods manually but the phone provides a higher degree of minute-to-minute control based on longer-term trends to try and reduce the number of times things go out of range.
 
Alman said:
I find the idea of using a phone for medical reasons disturbing. There's been diabetic monitoring devices for years but now seems to be pushed onto a phone. If a kid smashes their phone during the day and their bloods go low/high?

I don't understand how we let that happen.
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Depends on the system a diabetic uses. I'm on Omnipod, which is a tubeless pump and I need a separate handset to put in information, this is now basically a phone, but I can't use it as a phone at all. It's annoying essentially carrying around 2 phones, and I wish they would bring out an app so I can put it all on one device.

I do know of a child with a tubed pump that you can input data directly, but they also have a basic phone that is connected via an app to their parents phones. The parents can keep an eye and send instructions to teachers when they're at school, or to me at the club I run. It's massively useful and saves having to fully train staff as we all know that's not always easy and making sure they're covered if the allocated staff is absent.
 
The kids have to hand them into Student Services if spotted using them, get a receipt, show it to the teacher who told them to hand it in, and then collect it at the end of the day.

So of course the kids have figured out if they keep an old phone in their bag, they can hand that in instead and then keep their actual phone.
That took them all of 10 seconds to figure out.
 
We've been using Yondr pouches for over a year here and the system has worked much better than we expected. We had a few try to deceive by having a second phone, but once the students realised there were sanctions if they got caught and there was nobody to message as nobody else had a phone it soon stopped happening.
SLT stand at the entrance doors every morning and check everyone's pouches before they come into the building. Students without a pouch have to hand their phone in at student reception and collect it from there at the end of the day.
 
we have had them for over a year now...we initially thought it wouldn't work but it has. we have the unlocking magnets at the entrance. The cost of set up was high however what we have saved in terms of repairs to the school has more than made up for it. Kids used to txt each other to meet up in the toilets and trash them. That doesn't happen anymore. For the most part kids have settled into it and a lot of them appear to like it. Our school was even feature on a tv morning program as an example of schools that have been banning phones.
 
Alman said:
"Maybe the annoyance will be enough for the kids to leave it at home!" SLT may think until all of them hide them away.
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We had our policy talked about on one of our INSET days and SLT had to clarify that ALL phones from the students must be handed in including decoy/burner phones so that's where we're at with it. Now if a kid is suspected of having a phone on them we have a metal detector wand to check. Handing in phones at the start of the day has been policy as long as I've been here
 
We got told on INSET that phones are "not a big problem in our school" so they don't want to spend the £15-20k it would cost to give every kid a phone pouch :( Phones are supposed to stay switched off and out of sight whilst in the school building (this includes break & lunch). If phones are seen, then they are confiscated and students must pick them up at the end of the day from HOY/main office. Obviously, students who need phones for medical purposes can use them, but only for that purpose. I find our main problem area is after last bell - many students think just because the bell's gone, they can get their phones out whilst they leave. But the rule is, they must be out of the building! We'll see how it goes. I feel like the pouches would be making a mountain out of a molehill and would just lead to more drama which we definitely don't need! :laughing:
 
margot_rain said:
We got told on INSET that phones are "not a big problem in our school" so they don't want to spend the £15-20k it would cost to give every kid a phone pouch :( Phones are supposed to stay switched off and out of sight whilst in the school building (this includes break & lunch). If phones are seen, then they are confiscated and students must pick them up at the end of the day from HOY/main office. Obviously, students who need phones for medical purposes can use them, but only for that purpose. I find our main problem area is after last bell - many students think just because the bell's gone, they can get their phones out whilst they leave. But the rule is, they must be out of the building! We'll see how it goes. I feel like the pouches would be making a mountain out of a molehill and would just lead to more drama which we definitely don't need! :laughing:
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That's almost word for word what we were told. Also, apparently we trust our students to do the right thing ...
They have a scale of sanctions for repeat offenders (1st collect from HOY, 2nd collect from HOY + call home, 3rd parent collects from office. Then moving on to sanctions from SLT, eventually ending in suspensions).
 
margot_rain said:
We got told on INSET that phones are "not a big problem in our school" so they don't want to spend the £15-20k it would cost to give every kid a phone pouch :( Phones are supposed to stay switched off and out of sight whilst in the school building (this includes break & lunch). If phones are seen, then they are confiscated and students must pick them up at the end of the day from HOY/main office. Obviously, students who need phones for medical purposes can use them, but only for that purpose. I find our main problem area is after last bell - many students think just because the bell's gone, they can get their phones out whilst they leave. But the rule is, they must be out of the building! We'll see how it goes. I feel like the pouches would be making a mountain out of a molehill and would just lead to more drama which we definitely don't need! :laughing:
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Our students buy their own pouch and they keep it for the duration of their school journey. There have been some disadvantaged or medical students that we have provided them for, and those who don't want to buy them can hand their phones in to student reception when they arrive in the morning. Over 95% of the population got them though and parents are on board which is half the battle sometimes.

We've actually found it creates less drama as students show their pouches to the duty staff on their way into the building each morning and we have a large bank of magnets outside for students to unlock their pouches at the end of their day. The system works really well for us as a school and I wouldn't be surprised if it was something the government pushed schools to implement eventually.
 
Fallout_Girl said:
Our students buy their own pouch and they keep it for the duration of their school journey. There have been some disadvantaged or medical students that we have provided them for, and those who don't want to buy them can hand their phones in to student reception when they arrive in the morning. Over 95% of the population got them though and parents are on board which is half the battle sometimes.

We've actually found it creates less drama as students show their pouches to the duty staff on their way into the building each morning and we have a large bank of magnets outside for students to unlock their pouches at the end of their day. The system works really well for us as a school and I wouldn't be surprised if it was something the government pushed schools to implement eventually.
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There's no way the majority of our parents would pay for a pouch. We're in quite a deprived area - they begrudge paying for anything and would probably say it's "against their kids human rights" to not have access to their phones :rolleyes::(:laughing:
 
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