Smartphone Free Schools - 17th September
Our most monumental week to date
Dear SfS friends,
What a week.
My list of updates runs to 20+ stories but I am going to leave almost all of these to next week.
Because this weekend we saw perhaps the first MAJOR shift in smartphone-free schooling in this country.
Here is the front page of the Guardian on Saturday:
(link)
This was followed up by another front page hit on Sunday, this time from the Sunday People:
(link)
That 35,000 children in the Ormiston Academies Trust will soon have 7+ hours per day free from the malice of teen smartphone use - free from the distraction, the extreme content and the bullying that is the daily experience of so many children in this country - is good news of almost epic proportions, and a major milestone in making the majority of schools smartphone-free.
People like Damian McBeath; Daisy, Clare & Joe; and of course Tom Rees himself deserve huge credit and congratulations from us all.
Here is Tom bossing it on BBC Breakfast:
As I say, there is so much more happening across the UK and the world to make Ormiston far from a one-off but, this week, I thought it best to take stock of a massive and landmark achievement for smartphone-free schools.
Best,
Will
Please share
A rare CPD opportunity at the UK's only screen-free secondary school.
Many of you will have seen the fantastic piece on The Heritage in The Sunday Times - the Cambridge school ran by our colleague Jason Fletcher (who spoke to us on a call earlier in the summer) and his wife Fiona.
It's a gem. I have been on one of their training days. Highly recommended.
Details for booking here.
Please share with anyone who might be interested.