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When we are under lock down, not a drill, everyone is texting to find out information and to let parents know.
Anyone under the age of 35 don't call anymore. They text and they turn off all alert sounds. 
Adding the phone was what made them really catch on.
My sister felt the same way until her son, age 10, was at a scout sleepover with parents she knew very well. It seems the parents got drunk and drove the boys to the local ice cream store. The kids were scared shitless and her son had the know-how, from role playing games with his parents, to approach a mother with children and ask her to call his mother who then called the police. Both parents were twice the legal limit. After that she got him a Cricket (?) that could only call his parents, grandparents, older sister and 911.
Kids with cell phones have caught a lot of horrible things on their cameras. Teachers slamming students, abusing students etc.
If I miss a kid during roll call and mark him/her absent the kid is sent a notice by cell phone to him/her. The kid can then come up to me and we take a selfie with both kid and me and send it back to the office. Problem solved very quickly. I always hold up a sign that says, "Unable to hear and runs with scissors".
My sister loved the idea, when her son was in high school, that his cell number was the alert for school closings. 
I spent 29 years in the states... Grew up there... And saw two school shootings....
The answer to school shootings should not be phones in schools. I guess at this point Americans have just given up on solving that. It was a thing when I was a kid in the 80s-90s, it was a thing when I was in my 20s, and 30s. It's still a thing now that I'm in my 40s.
But no, it's not a thing here. My kids have literally never heard of a school shooting. Never heard a school lock down. No guards at the schools. So shelter in place training. No armed police on the streets.
Technology is big here in Ireland as well. We have the European headquarters for a lot of US tech firms... Apple, Facebook, you name it. My kids have their school books on iPads.my daughter is 11 and uses Photoshop and Final Cut Pro. My son is 9 and uses Logic Pro to make music. The need to understand computers and apps is nearly universal these days.
None of that means I want my kids to have phones in schools.
In fact we teach our kids how this technology works at home. We also don't allow screens in bedrooms... Public space only.
Oh and before someone give you hell, Ireland is not part of the UK. I'm not upset. But many people would give you an earful. Just so you know 
... as long as it's a decent vintage and pairs well with whatever the cafeteria is serving. 
Nice.
I know people who pay for $35 a month cell phones as an "electronic leash" for their kids, have the tracking set up, etc. Usually this isn't until age 11 or 12 or so, but it combines being able to see where the phone is on the map with the kid having no excuse for not calling if there's anything wrong/DEFINITELY no excuse for not answering.
Switched off during school hours would not interfere, though it'd be helpful if they'd allow kids with lockers to keep them there. And of course the school has zero responsibility for theft.
In my day the big debate was about pagers in school. Allegedly only drug dealers had them.
