No they weren't allowed when I was at school, as I think is the case in most places.
Former General Manager
Former Forum Manager
Former Site Manager
I've left, but I still visit sometimes!
Landon Liked
I'm not sure phones were mainstream when I was 12
Not allowed! But well, that was years ago. I kinda think phone is necessary nowadays.
Phones aren't necessary when you're a child unless it's for an emergency, there's no need to be constantly in front of a phone screen and personally they do more harm than good with concentration (speaking from experience from when I was at school).
In junior school we weren't allowed them whatsoever, but then again why would a 7-11 year old back then have one? I'm talking 2001-2005 here when they weren't that popular! If you were expecting a call then the teachers would keep the phone safe for you, or failing that - back then parents actually rung the school to pass on a message (they did with me and my sister anyway). It was a great system back then, my parents phoned to say that the high school was on fire so they couldn't to us to take us home so we had to walk, took a matter of 2 minutes to relay the message!
In high school it was a little different, a lot of people had phones eventually, but to begin with they didn't. For years I rung my parents off the pay phone at school if I needed them, and even when I had a phone I didn't use it nor had credit (if I did I bought games with it). When you're a little older then I think more leniency in regards to phones are fine, for example you could put reminders for homework, jot down something to remember etc. (back then they weren't app phones so it was still limited) and so on. I still don't think phones were needed any other time apart from break/dinner and emergencies though. I'm a little biased because I didn't see the point in texting or anything back then, it was a couple of years later (14-15) that I started using a phone properly and was able to talk to my friends; I'm going to guess this was a while after 2007 because that's when we got the Internet so it must've stemmed from there. Our teachers were more lenient then too, we could have earphones in whilst doing our work on some occasions as long as we were being productive it was fine.
Now in college, I would say phones are fine, again still to be used in emergencies, but in UK colleges there's a lot of different rules than high school. Personally in my second year of college (17-18) we could choose an extra class to take, so I took an additional hour study in the LRC/library instead of learning anything else. I loved listening to Galaxy FM (Capital FM) back then it was great and made me concentrate a lot as well.
Times have changed and I believe phones will be used in schools a lot now, originally they would be used for emergencies, but in some cases if you didn't have one it would have been better if you did in circumstances (a girl started her period at school, she couldn't contact her parents so she walked home, and told most of us what was happening. If that was done via phone call it would have been a lot more private for her). Today you have apps to help you with so many things in school, a lot of classes are taken using computers (the transition I had from high school to college was weird, for example I would only use a computer in Product Design mainly, but college had Macbooks and PCs for everything, not to mention most of our work had to be typed not written).
So, I've waffled on, but although I think phones in schools should be used for emergencies primarily, I can see some benefits (especially in apps and the ability they have to help you in subjects) to them nowadays. The reasons wouldn't have been plausible when I was at school - I had too much fun actually playing with my friends than being in front of a screen!
We were allowed to have them (at secondary school, mobiles weren’t really a thing before then), but we had to keep them off during the day. Most of us put them on silent and used them surreptitiously though!