Technology presents our schools and our families with questions that are new in their detail, but not necessarily in their principle.

At Bushey Primary Education Federation, our responsibility is to prepare our children to live safely, confidently and intelligently in the world they inhabit. That world includes books, conversation, physical activity, play, creativity and human relationships. It also includes screens, digital technology and, increasingly, artificial intelligence.

We do not believe that preparing children for this world is best achieved by pretending parts of it do not exist.

Our approach is therefore one of preparation rather than prohibition.

A balanced childhood in a digital world

We understand why some of our families are concerned about children's use of screens. We share many of those concerns and we are aware and open to the arguments and the views of groups who lobby for a completely screen-free childhood.

Children need conversation, relationships, books, imaginative play, physical activity, handwriting, practical experiences, time outdoors, creativity and opportunities to interact with the real world. These things are fundamental to childhood and to learning.

We are equally clear, however, that not all uses of a screen are the same.

There is an important difference between passive consumption of digital content and purposeful use of technology to create, communicate, research, calculate, compose, record, collaborate or solve problems.

For this reason, we do not believe that simply measuring the number of minutes a child spends looking at a screen provides a sufficient measure of whether technology is being used well.

The better questions for all in our school community are:

What is the child doing? Why are they doing it? What are they learning? Could it be taught better without technology? Does the technology add something worthwhile?

Sometimes the best resource is a tablet or computer.

Sometimes it is a pencil.

Sometimes it is a book, a paintbrush, a musical instrument, a set of manipulatives, the outdoors or another human being.

Good teaching lies in knowing the difference, and our teachers always think carefully about these questions in our curriculum design, their planning and their approach to lesson preparation. 

Technology should have a purpose

We therefore have no ambition to create either screen-dependent schools or a screen-free ones.

In our federation schools, technology is used where it improves learning, provides access to experiences otherwise unavailable, develops important knowledge and skills, supports inclusion or enables our children to create and communicate in meaningful ways.

It is never used in an unthinking way or utilised simply because it is available.

We want our children to continue to read books, write by hand, develop their handwriting styles, calculate, talk, listen, debate, draw, make, build, perform, investigate, create, play and learn alongside other people. This is what our creative curriculum is ALL about.  Technology belongs within that rich educational experience; it does not replace it.

Indeed, part of becoming digitally literate is learning when not to use technology and THAT, we must teach our children. 

Preparing children to be safe

The same principle informs our approach to online safety and Artificial Intelligence.

We would not expect children to learn about road safety simply by keeping them away from roads, nor develop healthy relationships with others by preventing them from encountering difficult social situations.

Safety develops through appropriate protection and education.

Our children therefore need carefully planned, age-appropriate opportunities to understand this digital world they inhabit: how information reaches them; how technology can influence behaviour; how personal information should be protected; how online content should be questioned; and what to do when something makes them uncomfortable or uncertain.

Boundaries remain important. There are technologies, platforms and forms of content that are NOT appropriate for primary-aged children. Preparation does not mean unrestricted access.

But prohibition or 'banning screens' from our schools would not allow us to teach judgement.

Our aim is progressively to develop those skills of understanding and judgement.

Our approach to Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence makes this responsibility particularly important.

AI is increasingly embedded within search engines, software, devices and services that our children will encounter. Our responsibility is therefore not simply to teach children how to operate AI, but to help them understand its possibilities, limitations and risks.

Most importantly, AI must not replace the thinking through which children learn.

Children need to retrieve knowledge, develop fluency, formulate sentences, calculate, reason, discuss, draft, make mistakes, receive feedback and try again.

These are not inefficiencies that technology should remove. They are where learning happens.

Our principle is therefore:

Learn it. Practise it. Do it for yourself. Then see how technology can help.

Our children need to develop knowledge and skills themselves before technology is used to extend what they can do.

Intelligent and critical users

As children mature, we want them increasingly to ask these questions of their use of technology, and invite our parents to think in this way too:

• Why am I using this technology?
• What is it helping me to do?
• What thinking should I do myself?
• Is this helping my thinking or replacing it?
• How do I know whether the information it gives me is accurate?
• What information should I never share?
• Who created what I am seeing, and why?
• Could technology be influencing what I think, choose or believe?
• Can I explain and take responsibility for the final work myself?
• Would I actually be better doing this without a screen?

These questions are about far more than computing.

They concern metacognition, critical thinking, safeguarding and personal agency.

Childhood matters

None of this diminishes our commitment to protecting childhood for the children in our care and charge each day.

Quite the opposite.

Our children need rich experiences of the physical and human world. They need to climb, run and play; handle books and materials; be in the outdoors, camp; make things; perform; sing; talk; listen; disagree; negotiate; imagine and create. They need adults and other children, not devices, to be at the centre of their relationships.

Technology should occupy an appropriate place within that childhood, not dominate it.

Our teachers and staff will therefore continue to make considered professional decisions about when technology enhances children's education and when learning is better undertaken away from a screen.

Preparing today's child for tomorrow

The world our children inherit will undoubtedly contain technologies we cannot yet imagine.

We cannot prepare them for that world simply by closing the school gates to technological change. Neither should we embrace every innovation simply because it is new.

At Bushey Primary Education Federation, we believe our responsibility lies between those positions.

We will protect the things we know our children need: strong foundations in English and Maths; knowledge; oracy; creativity; physical activity; relationships; play; curiosity; independence and the ability to think for themselves.

Alongside these, we will teach our children to navigate technology safely, critically and intelligently.

Our ambition is not to raise children who are dependent upon technology, nor children who are fearful of it.

We want children who know when to use it, when to put it down, when to question it, when not to trust it and when their own knowledge, creativity, relationships and judgement matter more.

That is what preparing rather than prohibiting means to us.

And it is increasingly part of what it means to be educating today's child for tomorrow.

Working in partnership with parents

We increasingly recognise that questions about children's use of screens and technology can provoke strongly held views and it is emerging as an area where parents do not trust the views of the school and worry that we are at the mercy of Edtech companies, and are maybe blinded or unaware of risks that might include, data hoarding, behavioural profiling, monetisation of children, hype and fear marketing or just cite studies which call into question the evidence of some digital tools purporting to be educational, which are anything but that. National campaigning organisations have raised concerns about EdTech, smartphones, children's privacy, excessive screen use and the increasing presence of technology within education. We welcome the scrutiny that such debate brings.  As a local school, we led the drive within Bushey & Radlett primary schools, to be one of the first groups of school nationally to ban mobile/smart phones in our primary schools. We are FIRMLY of the belief that schools should never use technology simply because it is available, fashionable or convenient.

Indeed, we share a number of the concerns that sit behind these campaigns and have worked closely with families when risks and dangers, of the very worse kind, have arisen for children in our schools due to their use of smartphone technologies in their time outside our care. We do not want children spending excessive amounts of time passively looking at screens. We do not want technology displacing conversation, books, handwriting, physical activity, play, creativity or relationships. We are concerned about persuasive technologies, inappropriate content, privacy, commercial exploitation of children's data and the effects that poorly regulated digital environments can have upon childhood.  We have had talks and parent workshops in our schools led by leaders in this field such as The Two Johns and Alison Cope 

We also have parents who are experts in this field and have led workshops and training for our families and staff and information about these sessions can be found here. 

Where we differ from some campaigning organisations is that we do not believe that removing child-facing technology from primary education is the best way to prepare children for the world in which they are growing up. Nor do we accept that all 'screen time' is educationally equivalent and 'bad'.

Reading an e-book, programming, researching a historical source, listening to an ebook, composing music, creating an animation, accessing assistive technology and passively scrolling through short-form entertainment all involve a screen, but they are profoundly different experiences.

Our approach will therefore remain one of discernment rather than blanket banning - in all year groups.

We also ask for a degree of trust from our parents.

That does not mean unquestioning agreement. You as Parents are entitled to hold different views to the school, to challenge prevailing educational thinking, to support campaigns for change and to advocate for different national policies. We truly respect that.

At the same time, we ask families to recognise that the school has a professional responsibility to make decisions about curriculum, pedagogy and the resources through which children are taught. Those decisions are made thoughtfully, proportionately and with children's education, safeguarding and wellbeing at their centre. 

If however a particular use of technology is causing difficulty for an individual child, or becoming a genuine barrier between a family and the school, please talk to us. We would much rather understand the concern, discuss the particular circumstances and consider whether a reasonable adjustment or alternative approach is appropriate than allow a disagreement about technology to damage the relationship between home and school. There may also be occasions when, having listened carefully, we continue to disagree.

In those circumstances, we hope that our relationship can remain rooted in mutual respect and trust. Parents may continue to hold and advocate for a different position while recognising that our school will continue to make professional judgements about the appropriate educational use of technology.

Our commitment in return is that Technology will not be used in our Federation schools simply for technology's sake. It will not replace excellent teaching, relationships, books, handwriting, practical learning, creativity, physical activity or play. Its use will be purposeful, proportionate and age appropriate. We will continue to review emerging evidence, respond when risks become apparent and change our practice when there is good reason to do so.

But we will not close the doors of our schools to the realities of the modern world.

Our responsibility is to equip children to enter that world with their eyes open: knowledgeable about its opportunities, alert to its risks, confident in their own judgement and increasingly capable of deciding when technology should,and should not, have a place in their lives.

That is why our approach remains preparation, not prohibition.