You shouldn't need them at all in an educational environment for educational purposes. Smartphones should really be renamed "mobile bullying devices" for kids then maybe they wouldn't be so keen to get one.
As long as they let me save enough now to enable me to buy a house (200 to 250k) that I can then pass onto my disabled son when I die so that he will not have to go into council run accommodation or similar, then that's fine. 250k will buy a reasonable house up here but not down south so at...