Spencer Academies Trust primary Pupil Parliament introduces screen-free day

All primary academies within the Trust will hold their Screen-Free Day on Friday, but Chetwynd moved theirs up to accommodate an international celebration planned for the same day. This effort stems from the conclusions made after a Pupil Parliament debate about the impacts of excessive screen use; the children concluded that spending too much time looking at screens overall has a negative impact on young people by negatively affecting physical and mental health, reducing social interaction, and harming the environment. Going forward, primary academies across the Trust will have a screen-free day once every half term, and the members of the Pupil Parliament will get to see a widespread impact resulting from their work.

The Pupil Parliament began this project nearly a year ago, after presenting their ideas to CEO Paul West and Director of Primary Education Angela O’Brien, OBE. Mrs O’Brien said, “It has been great to work alongside the Pupil Parliament to implement their idea of a screen free day. They were very passionate about their vision and the important messages that they want to convey. These young leaders represent the very best of our Trust values of aspiration, partnership and responsibility.”

Around Chetwynd, teachers used a variety of strategies to get around the lack of screens, from focusing on group projects to emphasising hands-on activities and workbooks. “It feels like a trip down memory lane,” said Year 5 teacher Gill Davenport, who started teaching before smartboards were a regular classroom feature.

The children’s reactions were varied; some, like the Year 6 classes, had spent the week working on Dragons’ Den-style projects and wouldn’t be using screens anyway, so class felt normal to them. Other pupils whose lessons would have included instruction with a smartboard noticed a much greater difference. Similarly, when asked if they would carry on with their screen-free day at home after school, children had very different intentions. Pupil Parliament members Charleigh and Santi planned on spending time outside playing football or walking the dog, but other students responded with an emphatic, “No!”

The Pupil Parliament hopes to see a variety of benefits from going screen-free. Charleigh explained, “If your screen is on most of the day while you’re learning, and then you go home and look at a screen until you go to bed, that’s going to affect your brain.” Santi added that setting down devices can help increase creativity. Schools will also look at the impact on energy consumption to see what kind of effect screen-free days may have.