Those judging the actions of an Ōamaru school that prevented its pupils missing on a school camp from contacting their parents on their cellphones need to consider other possible sides to the story, a parenting expert has claimed. 

St Kevin's College came under fire this week when it came to light that their students were barred from calling their parents when a group of pupils and staff went missing on a wilderness camp.

Two students and two staff went missing overnight last month at Mount Somers, they were found the next morning by Search and Rescue teams. 

Parenting commentator, Nathan Wallis told Heather Du-Plessis Allan Drive on Wednesday the school's actions come down to how transparent it had been with parents in the first place over the phone policy. 

"[If the parents] knew there was a chance that there was this situation where the phones would be taken off them then yep, I think it's absolutely reasonable," said Wallis. 

He said it's hard to judge the situation without all the information, given the situation was clearly a complex one and the teachers responsible had multiple balls to juggle. 

The immediate question on Wallis' mind was whether the students using their phones would add to the state of worry by contacting parents whilst missing. 

"Were the staff all fully concerned with the missing people and all their resources were going on that, they didn't have to resource the parents?" said Wallis. 

"It's easy to say from the outside and criticise but I don't know the individual circumstances so I can only go on standard stuff, and you know, if the parents can predict it, if it's school policy, then they have to expect it."

However, Wallis also mentioned the flip side that if there was nowhere written that phones weren't to be used, parents had reasonable expectations to contact their kids at any time. 

"So to me, it's all about whether it was written down somewhere and if there was transparency."

Wallis noted in Queensland, Australia that all schools throughout the state are banned from allowing their students to use cell phones, he noted the correlation between screen time and mental illnesses. 

He believed a school camp was a good place to limit the students' access to phones and allow them to fully interact with nature without distraction. 

"If your kid has two hours a day where they don't have a screen consistently, every day, it takes them completely outside that [correlation] focus group," said Wallis.

"So, you can come from one angle that it doesn't do them any harm as long as they spend at least two hours away from it.

"I don't know if they can't just give them a phone that just does the basic stuff if that was possible - it's harder to get those phones more and more."

A parent of a pupil on the camp said they were left for 12 hours with no information from the school.

Her daughter, who was not one of the missing, had her cell phone taken and was not allowed to make any calls.

“We kept calling the school but they couldn’t give us any information.

“It was the longest 12 hours of my life not knowing if my child is safe.”

Principal Jo Walshe said, “taking cellphones off students is standard procedure to ensure that false information is not reported to agencies which would confuse the situation”.

The school was in contact with the parents of the two missing pupils throughout the night.

“At all times the group had communication, appropriate clothing, water, food and were not in any danger. They had a tent for shelter.”

Other parents were alerted to the situation, she said.

A statement was issued to all parents of pupils at the camp explaining what had happened and announcing a full review had been ordered.