I'M A GREAT HEAD TEACHER, GET ME OUT OF HERE

It was interesting to hear that the effect on pupils’ learning has been ‘dramatic’ after a headteacher from an all-boys school in Burnage, banned his pupils from using mobile phones during school time!

But this is not news. Many schools have banned pupils from carrying and using mobiles during school time, on school premises, for years!

So why this ‘news’ has just hit the airwaves regarding pupils at Burnage Media Arts College in Manchester seems to be a bit opportunistic to me!

Perhaps a clue is contained in the schools title: ‘Media Arts College’ Maybe this story was part of an exercise of how to get an old Press Release published or merely a well-used way to raise the head teacher’s profile?

Apparently, staff at the school have said, that their students (They used to be called pupils; the term student was designated to those who attended graduate college or university!) are forbidden from using mobiles anywhere or at any time on campus (or ‘school grounds’ to those over a certain age). The ban was brought in twelve months ago after children disrupted lessons by texting and playing games on their phones. There were also concerns that pupils were cyber-bullying one another using texts and Blackberry messaging (BBM).

Surely the head teacher didn’t need to be a genius to work this out. Can people honestly be surprised that kids are doing better when they are not playing with their toys in the classroom? - I believe this is called; common sense and the real news story here should be about ‘another head teacher who has adopted the application of that old, long forgotten practice called ‘discipline’.

What I’d like to know is who paid to have these mobile phones surgically removed from their hands?