Classroom screens are harming children’s physical health, clinicians warn

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By Jordan Reynolds, Press Association

More than 150 clinicians have written to ministers warning of a “crisis” in children’s physical and developmental health linked to screen-based learning.

In an open letter to education secretary Lucy Powell and health secretary Yvette Cooper, the clinicians – including GPs, ophthalmologists, audiologists, paediatricians and speech and language therapists – describe the absence of any child-focused health scrutiny of “EdTech” as “a serious safeguarding concern” for both departments.

The letter says that around £900 million a year is spent on “EdTech” in English schools, and no product is required to show that it is safe for children’s physical health before a school buys it.

The clinicians go on to warn: “No drug, food product or toy is given to millions of children without a single safety check. Yet, astonishingly, EdTech devices and platforms currently used by millions of pupils in schools and for homework every day of the week face no equivalent child-focused health scrutiny.”