At the start of this half-term, I deleted Twitter/X from my iPhone.  As much as I enjoyed scrolling through news clips and opinions, I had found myself trapped in a time vortex that usually ended an hour after I had sat down with a me feeling stressed or frowning for no apparent reason.  The ability of smart phones to make us addicted to angst is a modern phenomenon which afflicts us all.  Since deleting it, my screen time is down 30% and I have managed to find much more time for reading.  A book. 

Hypocritically, I also get frustrated when I find my son lounging on the sofa, Sky Sports on the TV, mobile phone in hand, an iPad on his lap.  “What you doing?” I’ll ask him.  “Nowt,” he’ll reply.  “Then get up and do you homework/empty the bins/dishwasher etc,” I’ll snap in frustration. 

Smart phones are insidious objects.   In a generation, they have crawled into every corner of our lives so that now we now can’t live without them.  Just last night alone, I used my phone to time my run, listen to a Podcast, check my work emails, pay a bill, check the football scores, read the news, engage in some banter with my mates on WhatsApp, do some Christmas shopping and text my mum.  The productivity achieved from my phone is incredible.  And yet, I could spend as long as it took me to do those things, doom scrawling through X in search of a momentary dopamine hit.  And I’m a middle-aged man who learned how to live and function as an adult before smart phones existed.  Pity the child who knows nothing else.  

Which is why, this year, we further tightened our policies on mobile phones in schools.  We have now joined the 56% of schools in England that do not allow mobile phones to be used at all during the school day, even at breaks and lunchtimes.  This is up from 39% in 2018 and the trend is only going in one direction.  Some schools have gone as far as physically removing phones from students when they arrive on site on the basis that the presence of a phone in a student’s pocket or bag is a stress creator (there is lots of research to support this). 

I have to say that, since we tweaked this policy, the response from the students has been superb.  They quickly adapted to it and universally comply with it; there are now only a handful of occasions each week where a student uses their phone and has it removed from them.  More importantly, incidents of peer disputes arising from mobile phone use in school have disappeared.  There were never many to begin with, and we still have to content with the regular out-of-school social media disputes which then spill into school, usually on a Monday morning.  If you were to walk into our school canteen at lunchtime, you would find hundreds of young people and teenagers sitting and chatting, sometimes playing Uno or another card game, and just enjoying each other’s company.  In person.  It is great to see. 

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This week, we sent out the first issues of The Eagle – our new year-group school newsletter.  If you missed it, they can be found here.  This will be sent to you each half term with the next one due before February half term to provide you with an update of the curriculum that your child is studying as well as the wide range of extra curricular events taking place. 

***  

It has been a tough few weeks in school with lots of students and some staff absent through illness.  I have managed to dodge the germs for now but I can feel the tiredness.  The only people that can understand how tired a teacher is in the week before Xmas is another teacher.  And so, this being the final weekend before the Xmas break begins, we are opting for a relatively quiet weekend in the Groak household, starting with a Christmas movie tonight, some gentle shopping tomorrow and an early morning trip to Bridlington on Sunday to see my son play football.  If the weather holds, we may even go for a bracing beach walk before heading home for another lazy Sunday afternoon.  In between times, I will catch up with my parents and plan the time we will spend together over Christmas.  It still sounds busy when I write these words but it will feel relaxing. 

Enjoy your weekend and thank you for your support.  

Mr Groak

Headteacher