The big mobile phone debate!

I know this is a hot topic for parents new to secondary school so I thought I'd cover it here. These are just my thoughts...

Does my child need a mobile phone for secondary school?
The simple answer is no.

Would a mobile phone be useful for secondary school?
Probably, yes.

No child needs a mobile phone for secondary school. I know this for two reasons. Firstly, we never had mobile phones and secondly, our son (Sam) has managed 4 years of secondary school without a mobile phone - and he's fine!
There's no reason that this generation of children need to contact people more urgently than any other previous generation, they just feel like they do because everything now is so instant. We bought Sam a basic mobile phone before starting secondary school but he's never taken it. He's too worried it will make a noise in class and he'll be told off. So the mobile phone sits as home every day and this has actually never caused a problem. He walks to school and walks home and he's never needed to contact us during the school day - just as schooling was in our day, and in fact at all other times in the past. Having said this, I do appreciate that some children may feel safer with a mobile phone, especially if going to school involves public transport. We chose to send Sam to a school within walking distance of home to reduce the potential problems that incorporating public transport into the school day could bring. Children may feel more secure knowing they have a quick easy way of contacting parents, especially if the bus doesn't turn up and they're stuck. If this is the case, my suggestion would be to go for an inexpensive phone that is less likely to be stolen. It also means it won't cost the earth to replace of it gets lost - as lots of things at secondary school do! The other thing to take into account with mobile phones is social media. Thankfully Sam isn't into social media at all (and his phone is so basic it only calls and texts!) so we haven't had any issues around this but it concerns me that so many children, who are often too young for social media sites, are signing up to them. With this comes the potential for bullying and (very alarmingly) grooming. If you are going to let your child have a mobile phone which can be used for social media, make sure they aren't signing up to sites they're too young to have an account with, and I'd recommend ensuring you have access to their phone regularly so you can check they aren't in danger.

In summary, a mobile phone is not essential but can at times be useful. It's up to you if you choose to buy your child a mobile phone but if you do, I'd suggest keeping it cheap and cheerful so it's easily replaced if it goes missing and so it's less likely to appeal to would be thieves.