The recent news headlines have included warnings from Anna Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England, about the role of parents in intervening to limit their children using social media and more generally the internet.

Launching a campaign to help parents to regulate their children’s internet use, she said time online should be balanced in the same way that parents regulate their children’s diets. “It’s something that every parent will talk about especially during school holidays – that children are in danger of seeing social media like sweeties, and their online time like junk food,” she said.

The Friary School blocks students from accessing social media on the school intranet and runs a comprehensive e-safety programme to educate our students on how to behave responsibly online. Even so, access via mobile phones and at homes is out of our control. This is one of the reasons why we have made the decision to insist that all mobile phones are switched off between 8.45am -3.05pm from September 2017.

Matt Allman, Headteacher, said: “There is no doubt that social media and the internet bring great benefits but they also bring big challenges – from online bullying to an inability to from real-life relationships. We would never encourage a total bar on social media but there are certainly good grounds for taking an approach of everything in moderation.”

For more information about the recent news concerning children’s overuse of social media and the internet visit the following websites:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/05/children-bingeing-social-media-anne-longfield-childrens-commissioner http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40840823

For more information on the work of the Children’s Commissioner for England visit the following website:

https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/