Iphone for grammar school - how common

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Petitpois
Posts: 1440
Joined: Thu Jul 02, 2015 7:44 am

Iphone for grammar school - how common

Post by Petitpois »

My DD says she wants a Iphone for grammar school. I am reluctant to get her anything other than a simple pay as you go.

Reading this is an eye opener.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35752625" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"The thought of having real conversations and maybe even reading a book seems to be way too much to handle", so says a kid at the school.

The truth is social media now is facilitating real conversations through a mix of vlogs, video conferences, messaging etc.

I have no idea how common they are, but our experience with an IPOD bought for Xmas has been pretty negative.

Any thoughts or experiences.

Garden pea mention her colleague spent a boat load on kit for her DS at KES, and he came home 8 days in and said he had lost £200 worth of stuff "somewhere" on the way home?? All had to be replaced.

Against that are they sort of required tools of socialising these days!!! Or just a daft, over priced bit of kit that that they don't need need..

PP
scary mum
Posts: 8840
Joined: Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:45 pm

Re: Iphone for grammar school - how common

Post by scary mum »

There are plenty of smart phones available for a lot less than an iphone. I do not believe an 11 year old should have £600 worth of phone. In year 7 they will rarely use it anyway, or at least mine didn't really get going until year 9. Now they are rarely out of their hands :( Look at Motorola phones. Fantastic low cost smart phones (if indeed a smart phone is even needed at that age).
scary mum
Yamin151
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Joined: Fri Aug 30, 2013 8:30 am

Re: Iphone for grammar school - how common

Post by Yamin151 »

Totally agree. Plenty of cheaper options than an iphone. At first ours had our old non-smartphone Nokias. We handed them our old Samsung smartphones eventually as the old Nokias were just WAY TOO embarrassing. I can appreciate the need to meet them half way when it comes to not being totally different to their mates. I know one has to learn to accept its ok to be different but we feel there are limits (knitted bathing suit vs lycra anyone??) so for us that means that they can have a cheap smartphone, but not an iphone or anything valuable, no way! Ours are on a £8.50 per month deal with 500mg data and currently don't use on wifi at all, but its coming.....they are Y8.

Agree with it being a rising tide we feel powerless to prevent and we are trying very hard to not be totally ludite but to maintain our principle of not throwing money at technology that is way beyond any budget we would normally spend on them.
quasimodo
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Joined: Sun Sep 07, 2014 2:47 pm

Re: Iphone for grammar school - how common

Post by quasimodo »

My daughter has an iphone as do a number of her friends at school.It is not a brand new phone initially she had an iphone 4 which my younger brother gave to her when he upgraded last year in the summer.We never gave her a phone until she was 11.She now has an iphone 5 when my eldest upgraded to a 6 at Xmas each phone was 18 months old.She is on a pay as you go contract with giffgaf of £7.50 a month which gets automatically renewed .She mostly texts and makes some calls.We don't encourage internet use on the phone.
Yamin I can totally understand your point of view we don't encourage her simply buying the newest thing on the market.She has been bought a mini i pad for her birthday by my younger brothers family a couple of years back which she or we hardly touch.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

Abraham Lincoln
BucksBornNBred
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Joined: Thu Aug 13, 2015 4:01 pm

Re: Iphone for grammar school - how common

Post by BucksBornNBred »

Our school has a supposed "zero tolerance" on phones, yet when the boys come out at the end of the day they are all on their (mostly expensive) smart phones! We bought DS a very cheap PAYG smartphone at Christmas as an upgrade to his very old Nokia but he won't use it as "phones aren't allowed" :-( He used to be happy to take the Nokia dumbphone to school on the basis that if he was caught with it at least the teachers could tell it was only for emergencies, but he won't take the smartphone. I think he might be the only boy at his GS that doesn't have a phone if I am honest.
quasimodo
Posts: 3854
Joined: Sun Sep 07, 2014 2:47 pm

Re: Iphone for grammar school - how common

Post by quasimodo »

My youngest dds school also has a zero tolerance policy on phone use in school.Children can take them but have to leave them in lockers for use before and after school.If found using them in school time they are consfiscated.You as the parent also have to write a letter to the headmistress at the school requesting permission for your child to bring a phone to the school and agreeing to the schools policy on the use of mobile phones at school
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

Abraham Lincoln
Nard
Posts: 105
Joined: Wed Oct 22, 2014 12:41 pm

Re: Iphone for grammar school - how common

Post by Nard »

We bought our DS1 a secondhand Iphone 5 when he started Yr 7. The boys aren't allowed to use phones at school and if they are seen with a phone they are confiscated. We only bought him a phone just before he started yr 7 whereas most of his friends at primary school already had phones and some of them had an iphone 6. I think the boys in his class have a mix of phones but I don't think they are the type of boys that compare phones and see who has the latest model. I think any kind of phone is a must for yr 7 and for us it is as when we pick up DS1 from school we can ring him to tell him where we are parked.
mum1115
Posts: 127
Joined: Tue Sep 16, 2014 1:05 pm

Re: Iphone for grammar school - how common

Post by mum1115 »

My son started chb last sept.
we went looking at phones with a strict budget and he tried android and windows phone. He chose a windows phone, it was under £50 and costs £7.50/month. It has come in handy - he lets me know about when the bus breaks down/late etc. A few times the teacher has told them to take a photo of the board with the homework on as it was too much to note down quickly in the planner.
After being used to an ipod for home use etc he couldn't get to grips with my little super basic nokia where you have to press the keys upteen times for letters etc so I did let eventually agree to the smart phone. I also put a tracker on it on the guise of 'if your phone gets nicked/lost we know where it was before being turned off' !!
He's sensible with it, and doesn't really bother with it too much.
PurpleDuck
Posts: 1586
Joined: Sat Jul 24, 2010 10:45 pm

Re: Iphone for grammar school - how common

Post by PurpleDuck »

quasimodo wrote:My youngest dds school also has a zero tolerance policy on phone use in school.Children can take them but have to leave them in lockers for use before and after school.If found using them in school time they are consfiscated.You as the parent also have to write a letter to the headmistress at the school requesting permission for your child to bring a phone to the school and agreeing to the schools policy on the use of mobile phones at school
Same in our school and DS did get his phone confiscated for a week on one occasion for using it during lunch break. The official school policy of 'no expensive phones allowed' does not seem to be implemented very well and DS claims 'most of his friends have the latest iPhones'. I'm not sure whether this is not a bit of exaggeration on his part (especially the fact that they are all latest models) but I told him he wouldn't be getting a phone that costs as much as much as my laptop so he has an android smartphone instead on the cheapest tariff I could find.

Apparently, at least one of our local grammars does not allow smartphones or camera phones at all, just basic phones with call and text functions; this is to help prevent cyber - bullying.
Last edited by PurpleDuck on Wed Mar 09, 2016 12:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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quasimodo
Posts: 3854
Joined: Sun Sep 07, 2014 2:47 pm

Re: Iphone for grammar school - how common

Post by quasimodo »

The only problem I have seen on the phones apart from normal rules on internet safety is the use of whatsapp.I am simply amazed by the number of messages some children send and the times they are sent well into the early hours.So my dds phone initially had to be left downstairs when she went to bed now she excercises her own self discipline.Sometimes in a morning there are upwards of a thousand messages on there.As a result there are many children going to school exhausted and not in the best condition to be in a learning environment .Gradually that will take its toll.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

Abraham Lincoln
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