Banning digital devices in school

for the first three years and then limiting them until year nine is now a policy for one fee paying school in this state.

The school will still use screen based learning for years 4 to 9 but it will be on a much more limited basis.  Years 4 to 6 will be limited to an hour a day and 7- 9 for half a day. It will be interesting to see if this improves student performance.

The school already ranks highly in NAPLAN outcomes and this is being done with the support of parents as well as teachers. They are following work already being done in Finland and Sweden where standards are apparently improving.

I hope someone is monitoring this initiative closely. It will take time and there are always problems doing research into this sort of thing but it might be worth it.

Interestingly one of the youngest students has apparently said it is good because it gives them "more time to read". Does it? If that is so then it suggests that children do not see screen time as reading time, or not as active reading time.  To this child at least "reading" involves an actual book. This could be a very good thing. Many years ago now a profoundly physically disabled child who could do nothing for herself told me that reading was "the best thing ever because I can do anything if I am reading". Perhaps even able bodied children can be made to feel this way. 

It is going to be work for the teachers of course. They will no longer be able to rely on all the screen based material which is available. It may be that they will welcome this. They will be able to go back to actually teaching.

My guess is that, if there are good teachers there, then the children will become more engaged. They will learn to focus more on what they are being taught. I suspect that interaction and cooperation will increase too.

Hopefully, like the other young student quoted, "School will be more fun."