Following community consultation, the Avondale College School Board has amended the following wording to our school rule:
"Unless permission is given by the teacher, mobile phones are not permitted to be used during the school day and must always be turned off and left in the student’s bag.”
OVERVIEW OF COMMUNITY SURVEY FEEDBACK
Frequent comments / questions
Students, families and staff have expressed a strong viewpoint that phone use should be permitted during break times.
There is no flexibility around this in the wording of the law.
‘Away for the day’ means between 8.50am-3.15pm, so students are not able to message or call parents until after school.
2. In the consultation, queries were raised around enforcement of the rule and consequences.
The cellphone rule will be managed in the same way as other rules.
There may be a range of minor to serious infringements of the rule. Minor is likely to result in corrective instruction by a teacher. More serious may involve Deans, DPs or the Principal. Students’ phones may be confiscated by a senior staff member, following which it would be returned to a parent/caregiver.
3. What is meant by ‘unless permission is given by the teacher’?
As per current practice, teachers may give permission for a student to use their phone for learning eg as a calculator, research tool, to record a speech, to note down homework etc.
Teachers may not give students permission to take calls, send/receive messages or use social media during the school day.
4. What if a parent needs to contact a student during the day or vice versa?
If the matter is urgent communication would need to be through the school office or via email.
5. What if a student has a serious health condition that requires use of their phone (eg they use the diabetes app to monitor blood sugars), or if they have a particular learning need that they use their phone to support them with.
The Principal is able to use discretion and/or grant exemptions to meet the needs of particular situations on an individual basis.
