Clive Wright, Head of Saint Martin's Catholic Academy, Stoke Golding
What problems were you seeing that led you to take action?
It was mainly behavioural: there was lots of cyber bullying taking place via social media. We had an incident where there the main protagonist was a child in Australia. We were having to deal with bullying issues with children on different continents. In the past, kids used to go home, close the front door and then get a break from the bullying. Now, social media perpetuates any issue well beyond the school gates and you get children at different schools bullying, arguing, cajoling each other - just purely because they can contact each other any time, anywhere. Dealing with these issues was taking up a lot of school time.
What are you noticing about the effect of smartphones and social media on the mental health of children?
It's a cancer in our society. The impact social media is having on young people and their attitude to sex and sexuality is really quite heartbreaking. It’s also leading to social contagion, for example issues such as anorexia and self-harm. Those issues are propagated through social media. Girls will see something on social media and then they will replicate that themselves. I know that if social media didn't exist, more than half the behaviours we see would never be happening.
When I started thirty years ago, mental health problems like this just didn't exist. Now they are ubiquitous in all schools, and you can track it to the onset of Instagram. Social media is damaging our young people in the most terrible way. It's catastrophic for the future of society, as these young people grow up and become adults. We see it already with younger staff who aren't as resilient as the older generations.
It’s also concerning to see how addicted children are to their devices. If you take a phone off a child, they have a complete breakdown - as if it's a bereavement. The idea of losing their phone for twenty-four hours is utterly devastating. There was one case where a girl refused to hand her phone over and she was in tears. She was utterly broken by the idea of not having a phone for twenty-four hours. So that's the level of addiction we’re dealing with. It’s completely distorting the psychology of our children.
What impact has the policy had?
What we’ve found is that during the school day, children are able to be children. We see them playing tag. There are children playing Uno, sitting around chatting, or playing football. It's quite an old-fashioned atmosphere. We take it for granted really. When I visit other schools I’m shocked - you see groups of kids gathered together like zombies, not talking to each other, just looking at screens.
The impact of social media on children is that they’re becoming deskilled in social interaction — navigating relationships, building conversational skills. At our school we put a lot of emphasis on developing those softer skills. We aim to give them an experience of a very old-fashioned environment, where children are just allowed to be children; where they can play and interact in a way that children have for centuries. We are trying to create a bubble so that during school hours, they get that old-fashioned face-to-face interaction. We have a very lovely school environment. We also find that levels of bullying are really low at our school, and most of the bullying we do have is related to social media. When we're dealing with bullying, it's invariably something that's happened the night before, or on the weekend. Social media is what's causing the problems.
What do you see as the school’s responsibility when it comes to shifting attitudes with parents?
One of the issues for schools is how do you create a culture amongst the parents? It's very hard for a parents to say no to giving a smartphone. So as a school, our challenge is to create a movement within our school and between schools, where parents buy in to creating a smartphone free childhood for their children. We have parents who feel utterly disempowered. Even though they’re paying for the phone, they feel unable to take back the device if they need to. There is a peculiar thing in parenting at the moment, where parents don’t feel empowered to say “no” to their children. So we need to work with them to change the culture.
What would you say to heads who want to go smartphone free?
- Have a clear plan. You need to anticipate all of the issues that might arise. You may get parents objecting and you'll definitely get pushback from pupils. So work out how you’re going to deal with that.
- Educate the parents. The first thing I would do is a massive education campaign. Show the graphs and the data. Explain that although smartphones aren’t a physical drug, they’re going to affect the psychology of your child. Educate people slowly. Tell them what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it. Then, recommend to parents that they buy a brick phone rather than a smartphone for their children. .
- Educate the children. You need to explain the “why” to students. Children aren’t daft. Explain to them that as a school you are incredibly ambitious for them. You want them to be a successful young adult, but that smartphones are having a negative impact on their psychology. Explain that what you’re doing is going to help them acquire the skills and experience that they need to be successful in life.
- Be brave. Explain what the consequences will be for children who break the rules. There will be parents who object. Make it clear why you need their support. Be tenacious and uncompromising. There will be parents who stand up to you. Explain to parents that if they let their kids use social media, it’s almost certainly going to have a negative impact, and it may well have a catastrophic impact. You could also explain that there are other schools available, that sending their child to your school isn’t compulsory, and that you’re doing this for their child’s benefit.
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