Fiona was invited by BBC Radio 4 Today programme to provide an expert response to the notion that screens are doing damage to our children all of the time. She explains that a focus on the statutory right to opt out of device-based learning proposed in the amendment obfuscates a much more complex issue.
鈥淭here are lots of complicated challenges associated with using digital technologies and what we need to do is address the issue holistically - that would involve change to curriculum, more CPD and time for educators to ensure children from a young age are learning how to use digital technologies safely and productively. This opt out is likely to introduce inequalities in experience and increase workload burden for teachers.
Children and adults need to use technologies and if we don鈥檛 educate them to become familiar with them, we鈥檙e actually doing them a disservice both in terms of the operational skills needed to use those technologies, but also learning in a safe supported environment the complex challenges - learning those critical digital literacy skills, learning about how to achieve a balance and making judgements on what is a good source of information and what isn't. So it鈥檚 absolutely appropriate to include it in the curriculum.鈥
Listen to the discussion on (item starts 1:50:25 mins)