A headteacher dubbed the “strictest in the UK” has revealed that many of her pupils lock their phones away in a school safe for months at a time in order to improve their grades, MyLondon reports. Katharine Birbalsingh told an annual teachers’ conference that students should be encouraged to have regular “digital detox” periods.
The head of Michaela Community School, Wembley, said “all problems start on smartphones” and suggested parents restrict their children’s access to them. Speaking to the Association of School and College Leaders, she added: “If we genuinely want things to be fairer, and we want our disadvantaged children to be socially mobile, the best thing I can do for them is getting them not to have a smartphone.”
Ms Birbalsingh, who chairs the Department for Education’s social mobility commission, explained that a significant number of pupils at her school volunteer to hand in their phones and other electrical devices when they arrive – with some handing them over for months at a time.
She said that “about half” of the school’s Year 11 pupils have elected to give up their phones until they sit their GCSEs. Ms Birbalsingh said: “We work very hard with families to encourage them not to give [their children] a smartphone. Because all of the problems start on smartphones.
“We actually run digital detox with our children at school, meaning we have a big safe, and we strongly encourage them to give us their smartphones or the leads from their video games overnight. And if some of them will give them up for weeks if not months, you’re lucky.”
Ms Birbalsingh has hit the headlines in the past due to her uncompromising approach to education – something which has earned her the moniker “the strictest head mistress in the UK”.
A report in The Times earlier this year detailed how she runs a boot camp where kids are taught to keep their shirts tucked in, pick up crumbs after eating and learn how to “behave in the Michaela way”.
The school also has a strict detention programme, with students told off for things such as lateness, not having the correct equipment and breaking uniform rules.
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