Mobile phone guidance for Students

Mobile phone guidance for students

Students are allowed to bring mobile phones/iPods etc. to school but they must be switched off and out of sight throughout the school day, including detentions. 

There are times when you may need to make contact with your parents during school hours and to do this, you may use the phone in the main school office.  You can avoid any problems by cooperating with our expectations.

The consequence for not following this rule is that the phone/iPod is confiscated from you, labelled and locked away and can only be collected at the end of a 3 night confiscation period.  You can have the phone returned on a Friday afternoon so that you are not without it over a weekend. However, if this means that if the phone has been confiscated for less than 3 nights, the same working phone with SIM card must be returned on the Monday morning to complete the sanction. This sanction escalates if this happens on a repeat occasion.

This means that you are without the mobile device from the time it is taken until a 3-night confiscation sanction has happened, including evenings. Your parents will be sent a text to advise them that your phone has been confiscated.

The reason for this policy is that we want to make sure that students can learn without being interrupted by the distraction of mobile phones.  We want the teachers at Thamesmead to be able to teach you without having to deal with the disruption that phones can cause.

We also want you to feel safe in the school.  By doing our best to prevent mobile phone use in the school day, this provides you with 6 hours a day where you do not have to worry about what might be happening in the virtual world of social media.  One of the challenges of modern childhood is navigating the ever present nature and pressures of social media.  For you to be able to focus fully on learning it is important that we create a space where those worries can be put aside.