As a school, we were inspired by the fantastic work of St Michael's Church of England High School in Sandwell. As part of a Church of England Birmingham School Leadership Conference, we were privileged to meet St Michael's pupils and hear them speak of their admirable work to promote awareness of mental health. This got us thinking about what role our pupils could play in leading their own campaign within a primary school.

 Our Drop The Screen journey started following discussions with our Parent Forum, where parents shared the challenge of preventing children’s prolonged exposure to screen time. It is clear that many of our pupils from across all year groups enjoy spending time on screens. However, sometimes, this can have a negative impact on family life. We have worked alongside our Forum and School Council to design a campaign which we hope will have a positive impact on children’s wellbeing alongside providing children with a sense of accomplishment. 

At Knowle, our School Council are driving forward our Drop The Screen initiative. All children are invited to make a pledge - a promise to reduce the amount of time that they spend on a device or in front of a screen per day or per week. Replacing the time in front of a screen, participants are encouraged to spend their time more productively, whether that be reading, exercising, being creative, spending time with family or learning a new skill. It is hoped that the impact of this will be far-reaching!

The School Council initially seek to encourage as many children and staff to take part as possible. Children will be empowered to make their own decisions regarding what screen to drop, and for how long each week (e.g. 10 minutes per night or 2 hours across the week).

The School Council will then take their campaign beyond the school gates and will be challenging parents and our wider community to drop the screen as well. Watch this space! 

Feeling inspired? If you would like to make your own pledge, please follow this link: 

https://forms.office.com/e/6pjuJp04wV 

If you have taken part in our campaign and would like to leave us feedback, please follow this link:

https://forms.office.com/e/JGGQ9zA8AF

 

It’s great that the school has launched this scheme. It helps encourage the children (and parents) to think about how much time they spend on screens and to consider alternative options of activities. We just returned back from a week away with five other families. We collectively agreed to ‘no screen’ after a set time of the day and instead played games. It was so much fun and helped the children and adults to build relationships too.

I think the Drop the Screen campaign is fantastic, especially during weekends and half terms. She has been spending lots of time doing reading and completing her homework. She’s been working really hard doing crafts for her Rainbow badges. She has also cut her TV time after school from an hour to 30 minutes in the evenings.

A lovely idea! We are so pleased that she attends a school which takes mental well-being, and the potential negative impacts of screens, seriously. Thank you!

This has been absolutely fantastic for our family. She has played with her sister more which has caused fewer arguments! She has found a great sense of achievement getting outside in the fresh air.

She has been working hard on her pledge. She has been crafting, reading and working on her maths in order to ‘Drop The Screen’. So proud- keep it up!

It encouraged more focus on his guitar practice.

Really positive. Doing more games together.

She has done an amazing job taking it very seriously. She has even made a few scarves for her stuffed animals! She has also taken up reading Harry Potter and is loving it!

This is an excellent initiative. Screens are limited in our household and her pledge reinforced our attitude. It is a great opportunity to talk about the importance of spending time together and connecting over other activities.

She really enjoyed actively dropping TV time and crafting instead.

It has made her aware of the time she chooses to spend on her iPad. She has seen the great things she can achieve when not on her computer. She has spent more time practising her gymnastics. The main thing is that she is aware of not spending too much time on it.

She has actively reduced her screen time- she has played more with her cousins, practised her dancing and read lots of books.

It has made him think more about time spent behind a screen.

He has chosen to play games with his sister or go outside and play football instead of watching TV or playing his Nintendo. He is much happier when doing these things. He’s also taken to writing out his times tables in the morning and is very proud to take them in to show Mrs Hawkins. He understands that less screens makes you more productive and feel better too!

Instead of watching his tablet, he has spent more time playing with his football and his football cards.

He has successfully kept his pledge, dedicating a significant amount of time to improving his football skills and learning French numbers. We’re thrilled that the ‘Drop The Screen’ initiative has had such a positive impact on him and we are grateful it was introduced and the perfect time.

He enjoyed doing a 500 piece jigsaw instead of screen time. We need to repeat this was the desire for a screen is still quite high!

Screens taken away a long time ago- life is much better J

She happily gave up her screen time. Instead, she has been playing with her brother, playing the piano, exercising and doing puzzles. She has gone beyond her pledge and has cut out screen time altogether during the week days.

We went away to Wales and did not use any screens. She mainly uses her screen for homework and TT Rockstars. She has succeeded in her pledge, dancing, playing football and spending more time playing.

He has been doing more reading, asking for less screen time and has been seeing screen time as more of a reward or treat rather than an expectation. 

She was less moody and argumentative due to reduced time on iPad. She read more stories and had play time with her little sister.

He has made a great effort to achieve his pledge- well done! He has many opportunities to play with his family more and has really enjoyed playing darts.

We do not use screens in our house, only TV occasionally. It has made such a difference!

He has made a good start to dropping his screen time. He is reading a lot more in the evenings and enjoying it. We have a ‘family book club’ where we all read together.

Instead of watching TV or playing on devices, she spent a lot more time practising her writing or playing with her sister. Sometimes she herself turns off the TV if she feels other family members watch of too long so surely she started making a conscious difference which I’m really happy about!

She has actively reduced her screen time. She has spent this time playing with her brother and sister. She has spent more time drawing and playing with her dolls.

He has been really good at ‘swapping’ screen time for other activities. Our kids have re-discovered a love of doing jigsaws together and we’ve had so much more quality family time as a result of this initiative.

We have tech-free-Tuesday’s in our house. He is spending less time on a screen and more time playing games. Air hockey and pool have become firm favourites- making more time to be together and have fun as a family.

      

Members of our School Council visited Knowle Parish Church to present our Drop the Screen campaign to all in attendance. The children challenged the congregation to take part by making their own pledge and suggested this could even be part of a lent challenge! We are delighted that over 40 people from the church have taken part in our challenge and it is wonderful to see the school council reaching people beyond the school gates.