Principal's Report

Someone almost ran into me while I was walking down the street the other day. They were staring at their phone. I was staring at them heading in my direction. If I had not side-stepped they would have walked straight into me. And then I looked around and saw many people walking, staring at their phones. Adults and teenagers. There are few sights more familiar in modern life than a teenager walking through the school gates with a phone in one hand, headphones in the other. It is, in many ways, the universal image of secondary school life in 2026.

And while mobile phones are remarkable little devices — capable of helping us navigate cities, find a recipe or confirm  what year a particular song came out — it is becoming increasingly clear that they are not always doing us many favours.

For young people (and if we are being honest, adults too), phones can make it difficult to focus, difficult to switch off, and sometimes difficult to simply be present. Research continues to show that constant notifications, scrolling, and online interactions can impact concentration, sleep, learning, and wellbeing. 

One of the things we notice most clearly at school is the difference in students when they are genuinely connected with the people around them. Conversations become richer. Friendships strengthen. Students are more engaged in learning. 

Of course, mobile phones are not inherently bad. They are tools, and incredibly useful ones at that. But like many tools, they work best when used thoughtfully and in moderation. Very few of us would hand over the car keys to a 14-year-old and say, “Good luck, make sensible choices!” and yet smartphones often give young people unrestricted access to an entire digital world with very few guardrails.

As a school, we are continuing to encourage healthy habits around phone use: being present in class, spending time outdoors, talking face-to-face, and occasionally experiencing the radical concept of boredom. As a teacher, I compete with technology for student’s attention. I compete with an attention span that has been trained to want a dopamine hit within a very short amount of time.  If I haven’t interested them in 10 seconds they ‘scroll on.’ Something ‘better’ will gain their attention. Learning isn’t always fun or interesting or related to your chosen career path. It takes time and effort. Mistakes are made. Sometimes there’s a little frustration and a time of being unsure. 

This is not about blaming young people. Adults are hardly setting a flawless example. Most of us have experienced the humbling moment of opening our phones to “quickly check one thing” and resurfacing 25 minutes later having learned absolutely nothing useful except what a capybara sounds like when it eats watermelon.

Helping students build balanced relationships with technology is something schools and families need to work on together. There is no perfect solution, and the digital world is evolving faster than any of us can keep up with. But what we do know is this: young people thrive when they are connected to learning, truly connected to friends (IRL), connected to trusted adults, and occasionally disconnected from Wi-Fi.

And perhaps that is the challenge for all of us — not to reject technology, but to remember that the best parts of life still tend to happen off-screen.

Ms Russell

Principal