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APPLY NOWWord from the Head – 19 June 2026
Dear Parents,
Do you ever find that there are times when you have a plan for the day, and then something comes along and knocks it all sideways? So it was for me on Monday morning, when the Government announced that from next April all children under 16 will be banned from the vast majority of social media platforms. While it had been well-trailed over the weekend that something was coming, the details were not clear until 8am, which then required hasty rewrites for not one, but two, speeches – the first to be given that afternoon to my fellow Heads at the GSA’s Summer Briefing, and the second my Founders’ Day speech, which I recorded on Tuesday. (You didn’t think we’d let Founders’ Day pass without marking it, did you? Never fear: a video version of this year’s service will wing its way to you at the end of next week!)
I must admit that I have mixed feelings about the ban. On the one hand, I recognise that one might draw an equivalence between the harms of social media and those of things like cigarettes and alcohol, where we accept a ban for children without question. Indeed Dr Kaitlyn Regehr, professor in the Department of Digital Humanities at UCL and the author of Smartphone Nation who spoke at the GSA Conference last November, suggested just this, concluding: “The aim is that the next generation should look at the previous generation as wildly unhealthy, outdated and naive”.
Certainly there is content online and features designed into the apps which can cause damage. However, in my view letting young people loose on social media for the first time in the year that they take their GCSEs seems less than entirely thought through. I also fear that, despite the Government’s best efforts to make this the responsibility of the tech giants, parents and schools will find themselves at the forefront of managing a ban – both in weaning their teenagers off the social media which has been an integral part of their lives thus far, and then policing their access in school and at home.
My fundamental problem with an outright ban is that our aim should not be to isolate our children from the digital age, but to equip them with the judgment to thrive within it. As we have aimed to do at Channing, the goal should be to create informed, empowered digital citizens and to educate them about how social media can be creative and connecting, as well as harmful, addictive and unethical.
Interestingly, the announcement of the ban comes while a call for evidence regarding screen time guidance is still open. It was only two weeks ago that the Government announced that they would be creating guidance to be published this Autumn. It is expected to include practical tips on how much screen time children should have, when youngsters should get their first smartphone, and how technology is used in schools. Commenting on the guidance, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said parents deserve “clear, practical support they can trust”. Well, she should have been at the GSA Conference back in November, when Kaitlyn Regehr did just that.
Dr Regehr’s research reframes our understanding of digital consumption. She challenges the traditional, limited metric of ‘screen time’, a concept rooted in obesity research, arguing that we must instead focus on ‘digital nutrition’. Rather than viewing all screen use as equally detrimental, she argues that we should distinguish between passive, solitary scrolling and active, collaborative engagement. Watching the television together as a family, reading a news article online and doom-scrolling Instagram are all screen time, but it’s clear which ones might be more or less beneficial.
By encouraging open dialogues about online experiences, actively auditing the content our children encounter, and practising what she calls ‘algorithmic resistance’ by curating our feeds, Dr Regehr suggests that we can all resist the attention economy that treats our time as a monetised commodity. By shifting our attention from the quantity of time spent on devices to the quality of content consumed, we can help our girls navigate the digital world with greater intentionality. And by creating device-free spaces – especially in bedrooms at night – we protect both the quality of sleep and the sanctity of real-world relationships, offering our children the gift of analogue amidst a hyper-connected world.
While we wait for the full details of what a social media ban will entail – and the guidance in September which will focus on screen time – please know that we are here to support you, and our students, in navigating the online world. And even once a ban is in place, we’ll still be talking about it, so that they are ready for the day their 16th birthday comes.
While I’ve been wrestling with this, our students have been out and about on a fabulously educational, fun and delightfully sunny Enrichment Week. Sports Day was hotly contested on Monday (big shout out to Year 12 for their fantastic organisation and leadership on the day), Year 8 enjoyed their European adventures while Year 9 conquered the New Forest on their Bronze DofE expeditions. Year 7 enjoyed trips and activities, both at school and further afield, with today’s One Day Film School a real highlight. Years 10 and 12 started thinking seriously about what might come next for them after school, with careers days, work insight visits and UCAS preparation all taking place. I hope you’ll have heard all about it at home already, and there will be more in the News section below both this week and next.
For now, I wish everyone celebrating a father this Sunday – whether you are able to do so in person or not – a very happy Fathers’ Day. I really enjoyed Dr Kathy Weston’s advice for fathers of daughters in this week’s Wednesday Wisdom, and she has some thoughts on the social media ban too: that makes it a double recommendation!
With warmest wishes for the weekend,
Lindsey Hughes
Headmistress
