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A group of parents in our son's Year 5 class are talking about signing up to one of those agreements where everyone agrees not to give their child a smartphone until at least Year 9. About half the class seem keen.
I'm totally on board in principle but a bit worried about how it plays out in practice. What happens when one family breaks ranks? Is it just a recipe for falling out with people at the school gate?
Would love to hear from anyone who's done this, good or bad.
We're in one at our school in Lewisham. Two years in. Honestly it's been brilliant - the main thing it does is take away the "but EVERYONE has one" argument because demonstrably everyone doesn't.
A couple of families did drop out. Nobody made a big deal of it. It's not a legally binding contract, it's just a group of parents agreeing to hold the line together.
I'm going to be the slightly sour note here. We were in one and it got quite judgy. A parent whose kid had a phone for medical reasons (diabetes monitoring app) felt excluded and got comments. Make sure there's room for exceptions without people having to explain themselves.
That's a really good point Pete, I hadn't thought about kids who need one for medical or access reasons. Will raise it.
I think the key is agreeing what replaces it. Our group agreed basic phones are fine from Year 6 for walking home. Otherwise you get kids going to secondary with no way of contacting anyone, which isn't realistic in London.
My eldest is in Year 9 now and was in one of these. Her honest review: she was glad of it in Year 7, slightly annoyed in Year 8, and now has a phone and handles it pretty sensibly. I'll take that.
did anyone find it actually stuck once they got to secondary? our primary group all scattered to 9 different schools and the pact basically evaporated
@DrizzleAndCrumpets same risk at ours. Where it has held is the schools where a big chunk of the class moves up to the same local secondary together.
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