Over the past 18 months, Ark Schools, alongside our team here at Bolingbroke Academy, have reviewed extensive research on the dangers that social media and other inappropriate content can pose to children’s wellbeing, mental health, behaviour and learning. At Bolingbroke, we are committed to guiding our young people in a way that enriches their educational journey, while encouraging balanced, healthy personal development. As a result, we will be implementing the following policies, starting from September 2025:
- Our new Year 7 (Class of 2032) and current Year 7 students transitioning into Year 8 (Class of 2031) will be smartphone and smartwatch-free, meaning no smartphones or smartwatches will be permitted on site.
- We recommend that parents/carers of children in Years 9-11 also consider a smartphone and smartwatch-free approach.
We are excited to share that 3 years from now, from September 2028, we will be smartphone and smartwatch-free across the whole Academy: from Year 7 to Year 11.
Sixth form students will continue to lock away their devices each day. We do not currently have the capacity to manage this for the entire school, but we are alert to opportunities to enable this.
We understand that some parents may have concerns. For those who consider it essential for their child to have a mobile device, we recommend a basic model like this, and suggest using an AirTag or similar GPS device for their child's bag or blazer to enable easy location tracking.
We thank you for your support in helping us create a focused and healthy learning environment for your children. Our mobile phone policy remains unaffected: if a mobile phone is seen or heard during the school day, it will be confiscated and only returned to parents/carers directly, during reception opening hours 8-5pm.
Finally, we recommend parents/carers read ‘The Anxious Generation’ by Jonathan Haidt to help support decision-making when purchasing mobile phone contracts.