Smartphone use is banned within the gates of the junior school at Queenwood in Mosman.
“I don’t think we’ve really had an issue. Girls have brought phones and put them in a box,” says junior school head Anni Sandwell.
“But it has meant, after school, we don’t know what they’re doing.”
Students at Queenwood play on the monkeybars after their parents struck a deal with the school not to buy students a smartphone.Credit: Steven Siewert
Last year, Sandwell decided to change that. Armed with sociologist Jonathan Haidt’s popular book The Anxious Generation, which links social media and phones to heightened rates of teen anxiety and depression, Sandwell wanted to make a pact with parents: don’t let your child have a smartphone, full stop.
In an age of helicopter parenting, with many families tracking their children’s locations remotely, Sandwell did not know how parents would react. But she was pleasantly surprised.
“These parents were all really keen for their children to have a safe and happy childhood,” she said.
Haidt’s argument is that, before the 1990s, children experienced more risk and physical injuries, but fewer psychological ones. Now, children are overprotected in the real world, and under-protected online, where real danger lurks.
Queenwood mother Dr Rachel Holbrook had not given much thought to the growing presence of smartphones among younger students before reading the letter.
The head of the Queenwood junior school, Anni Sandwell (yellow jacket), with parents and students.Credit: Steven Siewert
“I then knew that I had to; I had to take a position and stick to it to protect my daughters.”
She sat at the dinner table and spoke to her children about why they were not going to have smartphones until at least year 10.
“I didn’t want my girls to have a camera, and I didn’t want them to have the internet just because of all that they can access. You are basically giving them access to everything.”
Parents went one step further and created their own group, Queenwood Unplugged, to share resources and support with the goal of keeping their daughters phone-free when entering high school.
At school, Sandwell said some parents were more lax than others.
“We have caught two girls this term using phones. We haven’t had to put the fear of god into them because they’re scared of losing their phone,” she said.
A group of eastern suburbs parents have created their own pledge – Wait Mate – to keep kids off smartphones. It has since spread across the country, with 5000 parents taking the pledge not to give their child a smartphone until high school.
Sydney Grammar last year also instructed parents at its St Ives junior campus to sign the pledge.
Other schools are following elite British boarding school Eton and banning smartphones.
Pymble Ladies College issues students from year 4 with semi-smartphones of increasing complexity. Years 4 and 5 can only call and text, while those in years 7 and 8 can use echat groups, Spotify and Bluetooth. The restrictions end in year 10.
Kincoppal Rose Bay issues parents of year 7 students with “dumb phones”, which allow only text messaging, phone calls and other basic functions.
“This allows students to travel to and from school safely and be in communication with parents/guardians as needed, without them being distracted by unsupervised access to social media apps,” a Kincoppal spokeswoman said.
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