Girls school urges parents and pupils to spend less time on phones at home

The school’s alumnae include Helena Bonham Carter and Daisy Lowe

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A private all-girls school in north-west London has called on its pupils and their parents to reduce their smartphone use at home, asking them to sign a contract to make their promise official.

South Hampstead High School has issued the two-page document to parents in the hope that signing it will encourage families to spend more time talking to one another or reading instead of mindlessly scrolling on their phones.

Though signing the contract is voluntary, the terms state that neither parents nor students will use their phones an hour prior to going to sleep and the devices themselves must be charged outside of bedrooms overnight.

The idea was initially proposed by one of the school's deputy head girls, who is studying psychology as one of her A-levels and identified a negative correlation between self-esteem and time spent on Instagram as part of her course.

After she presented her findings to pupils in an assembly a few weeks ago, she was inspired to write to parents and encouraged by head teacher Victoria Bingham to draw up the pledge along with input from fellow sixth-form students.

"We’ve only recently shared the pledge with parents, but we’re delighted that the feedback so far has been so incredibly positive," a spokesperson for the school tells The Independent.

"What’s important is that this has been developed by the sixth form students themselves, who can be such positive role models to younger pupils.

In a blog post published on the school's website, Bingham explained that while mobile phones have improved lives for the better "in many ways", excessive use can have adverse effects on a person's overall wellbeing.

"Passengers not noticing a pregnant woman needs a seat because they are too engrossed in Netflix on their phone. Entire families glued to their screens in restaurants. Young children handed devices to keep them ‘entertained’ [...] Now is the time we should start considering – and calling out – the working practices we do not want our children to inherit."

Commenting on the initiative, a spokesperson for the department of education explained that reducing smartphone usage at home could offer pupils major benefits when it comes to boosting learning.

"The education secretary recently spoke about the importance of limiting screen time, for both children and parents, as one-to-one time without gadgets getting in the way is so valuable," they tell The Independent.

“The pressures of work and the modern world mean putting phones away is far from easy, however it is a topic to consider, particularly as we look at ways to support parents with children’s learning at home."

The school's move comes after American-Italian restaurant chain Frankie and Benny's announced a similar initiative with its "no phone campaign", which calls on diners to deposit their smartphones in a box on their table with the intention of keeping it there for the duration of the meal.

The idea is that this will encourage families to spend more quality time together while dining.

The restaurant's campaign was launched off the back of a survey of 1,500 parents and children that revealed 70 per cent of children wished their parents spent less time on their phones.