Earlier in the year the Board received a letter from a concerned parent of a Year 7 student that made us aware of some concerning trends within the school and highlighted a growing amount of literature and practice in the area of cell phone use.  Below is a snippet from the letter:

My son came home from his first two days at HHS expressing his amazement and disappointment about the levels of cell phone use by students in class and break times and students on chrome books at break times. Having spoken to other new parents of HHS, my child was not alone in their observations. My child had these comments to say after their first day:

“How can I start up a basketball game if half of the kids have phones or computers – everyone just hangs around the people with devices and playing doesn’t happen”

“At lunch time no one plays, everyone is on their phones even in the class sometimes”

Our Board is committed to student learning, both academic and social. The behaviours described above are concerning to us because they describe how cell phone use is impacting both academic and social learning in our school.  The Board and our Senior Leadership team have been looking at this issue and would like your input.

You are invited to a meeting at HHS to discuss this on Monday 9 November at 6.00 pm in the Library, students are also welcome and encouraged to attend.

Please register your attendance with admin@hillmorton.school.nz

At this meeting we will describe what is currently happening at Hillmorton, hear from some other schools that do things a little differently to us and to discuss your views. After this session we will be sending out a survey to get your feedback. 

Help us to form our approach for mobile phone use in the school.

Some questions you might consider include:

1. Do you believe that mobile phones are a distraction at school?

2. Should students be allowed to bring phones to school?

3. Should the school allow the use of mobile phones in the school grounds during school hours?

4. Should we have different rules for different year levels?

If you would like more information on this topic please click here for various links and summaries.