And secondary school teacher Craig Macartney, from Suffolk, said he had noted that increasing numbers of children from middle to lower income households were missing school trips as families struggled to meet the basic cost of living.

BBC: Poverty hitting pupils' learning, survey suggests

Best attributes the huge year-over-year boost in Apple device requests and fulfillments to the April 2010 launch of the original iPad. (DonorsChoose.org measures school years from July 1 to June 30.) The organization is currently in the middle of its 2011-2012 school year but already sees that figure rising.

FORBES: How Will Teachers Pay For Apple's New iBooks? Sites Like DonorsChoose.Org

Dr Seeley says that truancy often begins after students' transition from middle school to high school in the US, at 13 or 14 years old.

BBC: NEWS | UK | Education | Truancy: How do countries compare?

And we may have worried that getting them their their own phones in middle school might divert them a bit from their homework or fuel their addiction to screens.

FORBES: Parents, Beware: Big Commerce is Watching Your Kids, Courtesy of Their Phone Apps

But the programme of field trips to the city jail has now been suspended after reports that up to nine of the pupils from Evans Middle School were strip searched by prison staff.

BBC: Jail trip pupils 'strip searched'