As a parent of two primary schoolchildren, I read your article with recognition and concern (The Guardian view on screens in schools: big tech is finally under the microscope, 27 April). Our school has recently introduced a one-to-one iPad scheme, and almost all of the children’s work now seems to be completed on iPads. At the same time, parents are expected to manage multiple, and often poorly designed, apps for communication, payments and even recording children’s reading.

Many parents are increasingly uneasy about this shift. Schools in the trust appear to be increasing screen time at precisely the moment when there is little clear evidence of any overall benefit for children. Meanwhile, there is growing evidence of the downsides: distraction, reduced concentration, difficulty sustaining attention away from devices and poorer literacy and learning outcomes.

In practice, iPads often become a barrier rather than a learning aid. Basic skills such as handwriting, sustained reading of books and face-to-face discussion risk being sidelined when almost every activity is mediated through a screen.

This also places parents in an increasingly difficult position. We limit screen time at home for the sake of children’s wellbeing, yet some schools are dramatically increasing it during the school day. It is almost impossible to enforce healthy boundaries when the very institutions educating our children are normalising constant device use.

Schools and trusts are committing large sums of money to iPads and software apps without demonstrating clear educational value. Once these decisions are made, executives seem more focused on defending their strategies, and parents’ concerns are met with defensive responses rather than genuine engagement.

Parents are entitled to ask whether this investment serves children’s needs or simply feeds institutional ego. Our children deserve evidence-based education, not expensive digital experiments that leaders are too proud to reconsider.
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Your editorial asserts that the use of educational technology “should not be expected to change”. We would dispute this. The growing body of evidence of the manifold dangers of screen use for children and teenagers will surely lay bare the contradiction of schools relying heavily on this largely untested technology, forcing pupils on to screens during the day and for homework.

Technology used by teachers to minimise the bureaucratic and administrative burden is entirely appropriate and justified. Pupil-facing educational technology is not, and needs to be rolled back.

As with the dangers to physical and mental health caused by screens, solid data makes clear that this technology is not only ineffective but is eroding young people’s cognitive capabilities. The neuroscientist Dr Jared Cooney Horvath has cited evidence from the OECD’s programme for international student assessment (Pisa), the progress in international reading literacy study (Pirls) and the trends in international mathematics and science study (Timss) scores that shows the use of devices such as laptops and iPads are detrimental to children’s educational progress. The evidence for dependency, cognitive offloading and safeguarding risk is now too substantial to ignore.

The Swedes have replaced screens with pen and paper because they know that pupil-facing tech is a distraction in the classroom. The education system will need to return to the basic principles that underpin deep learning: focus instead of multitasking; handwriting instead of touch-typing or dictation. This is the key to a bright future for our children.
Deb Evans
Low Tech Teaching

I have been a primary school teacher for many years. We are directed by our multi-academy trust to teach a curriculum that is purely lessons by PowerPoint. Each lesson uses multiple slides and there are at least four lessons a day. Children are therefore staring at the classroom screen for at least an hour and a half a day, not counting specific computer lessons where they would have an iPad or chrome book for at least 30 minutes.

Google classroom grew in usage by schools during lockdown, so goodness knows how much data it has collected from primary and secondaries from this time on. In my view, schools are definitely too screen-heavy and should have to switch off for at least one if not more lessons a day. Lessons used to be far more creative, varied and dynamic before the heavy usage of PowerPoint lessons.

I also think there needs to be studies on the effect of YouTube and scrolling on preschool and primary-age children as the concentration spans of children is being severely impacted.
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