Nowadays, technology is everywhere; it is part of our lives. It affects how we connect, socialise, play, shop and most significantly, how we learn. If used correctly, it helps students to prepare for their academic/professional future which will inevitably include the utilisation of broad and different types of technology.

At BROWNS, we encourage our students and teachers to use technology as much as they can as part of their learning process. We see technology as a facilitator that allows the students to have an active role rather than the passive role of recipient of information transmitted by the teacher. Nonetheless, the use of phones in the classrooms usually has an opposite effect, mainly in our High School Preparation students. These young students tend to use their phones for non-academic purposes which makes it an easy way to get distracted from the lessons.

According to research, published by the Centre for Economic Performance, banning mobile phones in schools resulted in a 14.23% improvement for low-achieving students and a 6.41% improvement overall in schools that had introduced the ban. To have a better understanding of these numbers, the benefit was the equivalent to an additional hour of school a week.

Based on research and the comments provided by our teachers, we decided to trial a No Phone Policy for high school preparation students which prohibits the use of their phones in the classrooms.
Since asking the students not to use their phones during the lessons, our teachers have perceived a more active environment and have seen better academic outcomes from the students.