The staff are right. And the ATL are wrong. And I write as paid up member of the ATL.

This ISN'T a technology issue - it's a behaviour issue.

An essential lesson of history is that you can't expect prohibition to work. Banning "phones", wireless iPods and their like, won't alter the underlying patterns of poor behaviour.

That's an education issue...

Teachers have voted to boycott a pupil who secretly took a photo of a female member of staff's cleavage.

The boy was caught by another member of staff at St Cuthbert's RC school in Newcastle upon Tyne, while adding a lewd caption to the camera phone image.

Members of the NASUWT and ATL voted to refuse to teach the boy, who was expelled but later reinstated when his parents won an appeal.

The ATL said it highlighted the threat posed to teachers by new technology.

More worrying was this remark from the NASUWT:

The NASUWT's national executive member for north-east England, Mick Lyons, added: "I can't see any reason whatsoever why pupils should have camera phones in schools."

I'm guessing that Mick Lyons is either a bit short on the imagination front, or has somehow avoided recent developments in multi-media...

Link: BBC Education.