Dear Parents and Carers

I read an interesting report this week which stated that banning mobile phones in school didn’t particularly improve grades and wellbeing as the amount of time kids spent on their phones remained similar. The report did confirm what everybody now seems to accept though – that smart phones are detrimental to kids in many ways and the debate will continue about banning them at all schools or altogether. This report also prompted me to discuss with my own son how much time he was spending on his phone and when. This is easily done through the digital wellbeing and parental control link within settings on androids and through searching screen time on iphones. Predictably he was spending, in my opinion, far too much time on the phone so I got busy playing with the parental controls which turned the bored, monosyllabic grunts I usually get into a tirade of abuse and claims of privacy. He eventually asked what he should do instead of staring at his phone screen. The withering look I got when I suggested he could spend more time with his Mum and me – well I’ve never seen someone so clearly think I’m an idiot, and that’s up against some pretty stiff competition. Still, I would rather have this row than leave him at the mercy of the wild west that is the online world. I have some trust for my son but there are limits and I have no trust for what’s out there online, so better safe than sorry.

This morning I asked several students to share their screen time and “pick up” data with me on condition of anonymity. The shortest average daily screen time I found was 3 hours 58 minutes, the longest over 8 hours (remember that is an average so some days would be more!). Four phones out of the six I looked at had been used between 12am and 6am that morning, and in one case the use had been constant, meaning this child had no sleep at all. In the two cases the phone hadn’t been used between 12am and 6am it was in constant use from shortly after 6am until school started and in all cases the phone was frequently used during school time. The lowest average daily number of alerts was 378, with the highest over 1000, and in all cases the most used app was Snapchat – for hours and hours every day in some cases.

The sad thing is I’m not surprised by any of this. At some point soon in Myton, once the Government have decided what their steer is, the kids and smart phones debate will start. In the meantime, if you’ve not done so for a while, take a look at your child’s phone and see what you think.

Best wishes

Andy Perry

Click here to return to the current newsletter