Stamford School goes Smartphone Free with Yondr

Stamford School is now a smartphone free space for children aged 11-16. At the start of the new academic year, Stamford School made its senior school, for children in Year 7 – 11, a smartphone free environment by introducing Yondr pouches.

The Yondr system utilises a simple, secure, lockable pouch that stores a student’s phone. Something that is becoming more frequent at concerts, so that you focus on the music and don’t spend the event trying to record it. Every student secures their phone in a personally assigned Yondr pouch when they arrive at school in tutor time. We have a 15 minute tutor time each morning and this is a great touchpoint to ensure compliance. Students maintain possession of their phones but cannot use them until their pouches are unlocked at the end of the school day. Students are required to bring their Yondr pouch to and from school each day and are responsible for their pouch at all times.

The Smartphone Free Childhood movement is something we are fully in support of at Stamford and we wanted to be ahead of the curve on this.  70% of our parents approved of the idea following parent consultation, so back in June we began to prepare for the roll out ready for the new academic year.  All our students have Surface Pro devices; therefore, following the successful roll out of this in 2020, we have no need for smartphones in lessons. But we do realise how vital mobiles are for commuting to and from our school, and did not want to ban phones entirely.

The aim of the Yondr pouch within the school space is to minimise distractions in lessons and maximise learning potential. Student engagement in the classroom has increased already, as has student behaviour. We will see by the end of the year how this also contributes to academic performance, but we expect the outcomes to be positive.

The roll out of our Yondr programme has been very encouraging. As well as a phone free school day, we have increased our quiet study space areas, so students are able to focus on their work without the temptation of checking their mobiles; this has therefore improved their ability to concentrate. What has been particularly noticeable, however, is that we now see children enjoying spending quality time with their peers at break and lunchtime, without the worry of whether they have missed out on something on social media. Our students have the freedom to be more present, and to just be in the moment with their friends. Reducing a source of stress and anxiety has visibly had a positive impact on their wellbeing.

The Yondr pouches are inspected regularly to look for any signs of tampering. We have imposed stricter sanctions for any transgressions with failure to comply to the new rules.

Far too often we were having to discipline students for making videos that were uploaded to social media during school time, on school premises and in school uniform. I am pleased to say that the Yondr pouches have dramatically reduced these issues.

We will continue to review and monitor – but at the moment we are very happy with the rapid change of behaviour in all our students.