Sophie Winkleman pulls daughters out of £20,000-a-year prep school once attended by their royal cousins Prince George and Princess Charlotte – after pupils are told they’ll get iPads in class
- Parents rally against the potentially harmful effects of screen time in schools
- Actor shares her concerns about the normalisation of devices in education
Actor Sophie Winkleman said she twice took her children out of school when she learned they were going to be given iPads to use from the age of six.
Speaking to The Times, the former Peep Show actress and half-sister to Claudia Winkleman revealed her concerns that devices handed out from a young age were affecting how children learned.
She said she ‘immediately started looking for different schools’ when she learned pupils were ‘going to be given tablets, all of them from Year One to Year Six’.
Her children, Maud and Isabella, attended the exclusive £20,000-a-year Thomas’s Battersea with their cousins, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, who have since left for a co-ed prep school in Berkshire.
She praised the south London institution, which charges more than £8,000 a term in some cases, but said it did not suit her children and raised concerns the use of online learning is becoming normalised in UK schools.
Sophie Winkelman (right) and her husband, Lord Frederick Windsor. Winkleman was concerned use of screens in schools is becoming ‘normalised’
Prince George and Princess Charlotte also previously went to the exclusive Thomas’s Battersea school – but have since left to attend another in Berkshire
‘The internet is a toxic wilderness we’re letting children stumble through without protection,’ the actor said, concerned about the accessibility of extremist content online.
Winkleman, who is married to Lord Frederick Windsor, the son of Prince Michael of Kent, rallied against the adoption of digital learning in UK schools, which she said she believed was driven by parents.
She said her elder daughter was allowed to use a tablet for a limited period on Sundays, and said that she supported a parent group lobbying to outlaw smartphones for under-16s.
UNICEF has warned too much screen-time for young people reduces empathy, as children need face time without FaceTime to develop an understanding of complex social cues.
The organisation noted exposure to screens reduces infants’ ability to read human emotion and control their frustration.
A meta-analysis of studies looking at how young people watched TV and played games found the screentime was ‘modestly associated’ with later ADHD symptoms.
And a study of pre-schoolers found more screen time was associated with worse inattention problems. The study claimed pre-schoolers spent an average of two hours a day in front of screens.
Winkleman said in an ideal world she would combat this by setting up a school for young people in London, outlawing screens altogether – except in IT lessons, of course, and in some maths classes.
School principals Tobyn Thomas and Ben Thomas told parents in a statement: ‘I do not for a minute underestimate the shocking and deeply concerning nature of this news.’
The school was informed on November 7 their new hire – who only started in his role in September – was being investigated by the National Crime Agency
The pandemic spurred research on the effectiveness of devices in class, but parents still have differing views
Others have shrugged off the worries.
The jury is out on the effectiveness of digital tools in classroom environments, though the pandemic provided a wealth of new research.
When classrooms moved online, the students who suffered the worst learning gaps were those without suitable learning environments at home or the technology to work as well as they could in the classroom.
Pre-pandemic, researchers found that there was ‘no significant difference’ in student outcomes – so long as students had all the resources needed.
MailOnline reached out to Thomas’s for comment.
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