Why as a parent I want my child to be able to opt out of any homework set online

Schools are increasingly setting work online, leading to even more screen-time for children, writes Jennifer Powers. Here, she argues why the UK needs to follow the lead of Sweden and Spain, which are bringing analogue learning back with good reason

Just as I sat down to write this piece, I received an email from my son’s school informing me that he, my husband and I have all been given accounts to a “personalised, quiz-based learning programme” with an “AI-powered tutor” to help students if they’re stuck. Gone are the days when children used to be issued with a textbook and the first days of terms would be spent covering them with bits of old wallpaper to preserve them.

Today, children are issued with passwords, digital logins, dashboards and any number of online resources to help them with their school work and learning. Nearly all of my 12-year-old son’s homework must now be completed online.

No one, quite literally, signed up for this. I would love an alternative, and it turns out I am not alone.

The relentless march to digitise education is frustrating parents and harming children. We have all heard of the campaign to make schools smartphone-free. More than 350,000 parents in the UK support the Smartphone Free Childhood movement to delay smartphones and social media until children are past puberty.

It is a no-brainer, resulting in better behaviour, improved attendance, higher educational attainment, and happier children. A “smartphone-free schools rating” has even been designed by headteachers to help schools become genuinely smartphone-free.

So, how ironic is it that while on one hand, schools are alert to the dangers of too much screen time, often lecturing parents and pupils, all this good work is being undermined by the pervasive use of screens in and out of the classroom.

Children as young as five are being set online homework. It is now routine for children to be issued a tablet when they start secondary school. In some places, this happens in year 5 or 6 in a well-meaning but misguided attempt to “get children ready for secondary school”.

Does my child have homework? He does not know unless he logs onto his school-issued tablet. I do not know unless I do the same, which I hardly ever do because it inevitably requires an app or a portal and, without fail, a new password. It is overwhelming for everyone.

Intentional use of technology can bring extraordinary benefits to children’s learning, whether it is helping dyslexic children read or using 3D printers in secondary school DT classes. But screens should be the exception, not the norm.

I know many parents who have successfully kept screens out of bedrooms and limited screen time, but are now tearing their hair out that the way school work is set and monitored is demanding more screen time, not less.

Yes, this might be educational screen-time, but asking teenagers to log on – and ignore the itch to reply to their mates on Snap, or a Discord chat or the constant prodding by the online game they have just tried to pause – is akin to giving a smoker a pack of cigarettes and asking them not to smoke them.

Instead of being given textbooks, children are being given passwords and digital logins – but at what cost? (Getty/iStock)

Parents are increasingly pushing back, asking schools for analogue alternatives. The reasons are hard to ignore. First, there is the physical harm of dry eyes and deteriorating eyesight from staring at screens. Every additional hour of screen time daily increases myopia risk by 21 per cent, studies suggest. In children already diagnosed with myopia, an extra hour raises the risk of progression by 54 per cent.

Next, the gamification of online education leads to shallow learning and reduced attention spans. Children struggle to absorb and retain information. Reading longform is increasingly rare, just one in three (32.7 per cent) children and young people aged eight to 18 said that they enjoyed reading in their free time in 2025 – a 36 per cent drop since 2005.

Then there is the agitation that comes from using dopamine-inducing ed-tech. The most gamified versions of which produce dopamine spikes similar to social media and video games. This all combines to rewire growing minds.

The tech companies and digital literacy industry tell us our children need to be online as young as possible to learn the skills of the future. Have they met British teenagers? They are digital natives, they live and breathe this stuff and teens could out-skill most teachers when it comes to honed digital skills.

The gamification of online education leads to shallow learning and reduced attention spans (AFP/Getty)

Earlier this year, a survey commissioned by Berkshire-based independent girls’ school Downe House found more than three-quarters (77 per cent) of those who answered admitted to using AI tools to help complete their homework. A 2024 survey of teachers by the National Literacy Trust found that nearly half (48.9 per cent) believed students’ use would have a negative impact on children’s writing skills, while more than half (56.6 per cent) were concerned generative AI could stop children from thinking for themselves.

Thriving in the digital world requires maturity, critical thinking, and impulse control, skills that are best honed in the real world away from addictive-by-design platforms. And to those suggesting it is up to our children to manage their use of technology and learn to use it for better, not for worse, I would ask: why are we expecting more of children than we do of ourselves?

Most adults know how habit-forming a lot of digital behaviour is. We would never sit a drug addict down at a table with loads of drugs and tell them to “make good choices. Expecting children to manage their own screentime is the same thing.

More than 350,000 parents are calling on the government to ban smartphones from classrooms (PA)

This threat to our children’s learning and development demands political courage.

Sweden reversed its classroom digitisation programme in 2023. The Quebec National Institute of Public Health undertook a review of existing research and found no learning benefits and, at worst, cognitive harm, prompting a change in education policy.

From this month, Spain is banning device-based homework in primary schools. The government has also set a two-hour maximum per week for tablet use in schools. This is inspiring stuff.

So, bravo to the Conservatives who are this week tabling an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, giving parents the statutory right to opt out of online homework for their children. This should garner cross-party support. Our children’s brain development, safety and wellbeing should not be lost to party politics, and the time has come for the UK to hit the pause button on ed-tech. Parents are on the march, and the prime minister should know that there is only one thing more relentless than the tech companies, and that is mums and dads.

Jennifer Powers is director of the Unplugged Coalition