Andy Drozdziak
A Catholic headteacher has tried to limit the harmful effects of mobile phones by introducing twelve-hour school days.
Pupils at All Saints Catholic College in Notting Hill, London, will have to turn up at school for 7am and not leave until 7pm.
All Saints headteacher Andrew O’Neill believes that the link between high mobile phone usage outside the classroom and poor mental health needs to be addressed. “Exacerbated by COVID, there’s a generation of young people who are anxious,” Mr O’Neill told The Times this week.
“At this school, we are trying to break the cycle of kids using phones causing so many problems. We are trying to give children activities in the evening, the kind of play-based childhood I enjoyed growing up in the village of Barton, near Darlington, instead of going home to their bedrooms and their phones.”
The move comes on the back of mobile phones being banned in schools in February. At the time, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said that mobile phones are ‘an unwanted distraction in the classroom.’
Starting this week, the optional scheme will run for 10 weeks, funded by education charities, and cost families of £10 a week, encouraging parents to value something which they have invested in. Phones have already been banned at the school since 2016, but the new scheme was introduced after Mr O’Neill learnt that pupils were using smartphones to blackmail “random strangers”, as well as cyberbullying and sexting.
The new 12-hour day at All Saints will include extra-curricular activities such as cookery, art, drama, dodgeball, and basketball. The day will end with a communal hot meal.
Mr O’Neill urged parents who are concerned about their children’s use of smartphones to read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, underlining the link between smartphone use and the current mental health crisis among young people. He also pointed out that there is an attendance crisis in schools and that failing to address the current crisis would result in a ‘generational problem.’
“We have a long-term issue we need to solve. If we don’t, we will have a generational problem with workplaces and society. Some children are so apathetic. They don’t care about anything. They are buried in their phones. We want to help them and say this is an alternative,” Mr O’Neill said, who also appeared this week on Good Morning Britain and Radio 4 to speak about his plans.
Picture: Andrew O’Neill speaks to Richard Madeley on Good Morning Britain