Monthly Archives: February 2024

Dear Mobile

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I know you like text. So here’s a letter.

This is what I wrote to the Editor of The Times (20 February 2024) on the sudden appearance of guidance from the Department for Education (DfE) on banning mobile phones in schools (19 February 2024).

In our full seven day boarding school community at Shrewsbury, we require mobile phones to be “off and away” during the school day. We want our pupils to be fully present, with their eyes up. There is a special value in learning and living together, fully connected, in real time. That’s why we carefully control and limit the use of mobiles.

Pupils have limited access in specified areas at certain times of the day. Younger pupils hand their phones in overnight to ensure a good night’s sleep. Older pupils are increasingly trusted to manage the use of their devices, as they will need to in the adult world. However, we keep this under constant review, with input from pupils, parents and staff. All policies need to adapt to the times.

Whether in the hands of a child or an adult, these devices are designed with an inbuilt siren song. We all know the seductive power of these sleek addiction machines. We all know they can lead us into time-warps and labyrinths. Also, to enlightenment and connection.

If we use these devices intelligently, we can harness their astonishing power to gather and process information. We should not fear the deliberate and mindful use of mobile devices in our teaching and learning and beyond: for AI in the classroom; for out of lesson consolidation; for research and extension work; for staying in touch; for buying bus fares and calling home. In these ways, and many more besides, mobiles are good.

Equally, we need to do all we can to protect our children. We have a duty to educate them on how to filter and read influences. And we need more effective measures to safeguard children from exposure to harmful content.

Photo by Terje Sollie on Pexels.com

Banning mobiles may work in some settings – day schools for example: such measures can provide temporary sanctuary, perhaps a sense of relief. But our youngsters will have to emerge from any exclusion zones we create. Banning alone does little to educate on sensible use. Nor does it help with what happens in holidays or outside the control of the formal school day. Perhaps, then, a better approach is to limit, direct, control and educate? And put resources into more effective cyber-protection.

The adults may think they have the answers. But, have we asked the children? Have we empowered the young to come up with solutions? In September 2025, we began a full consultation process to seek pupil, parent and staff views

Last year, senior students at Shrewsbury delivered a whole school session on how to make mindful, safer use of mobiles. We can certainly make policy and enforce controls. But, we will have an even greater chance of managing mobiles successfully in schools (and beyond) if we listen to the pupils themselves and channel the power of positive peer influence.

So, dear mobile. It turns out that you’re not banned after all. Not here anyway, in our 24/7 boarding and day community. But, we do need to consider how best to manage you. We need to keep you ‘off and away’ when we are learning. We don’t want to see you in use around the site. We are individually and collectively responsible for you. Whilst you have many great qualities, you do need to be kept under control.

Like a dog-walker entering a field of sheep, we’ll be keeping you on a short lead. We cannot allow you to run wild or send us astray. We cannot let you lead us into the company of wolves.

Dear Mobile, we must do all we can to be the master of you – not you of us.

Updated 17 October 2025

Mobile phones in schools – February 2024 (publishing.service.gov.uk)

Dear Kek

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A unique highlight of the Salopian cultural calendar is the McEachran Prize. This unashamedly scholarly yet playful competition is named after iconic Shrewsbury teacher Frank McEachran – or ‘Kek’ as he was known to all.

Kek taught at Shrewsbury from 1935 to 1976. Deeply eccentric – in all the right ways – Kek invented the idea of teaching from what he called ‘Spells’. Pupils were invited to choose short extracts of poetry or prose and commit them to memory. Standing on a chair, the youngster would recite the Spell, and then spirited and scholarly discussion would follow.


This year’s 20 Spells covered authors as diverse as WB Yeats, Jane Austen, Bob Dylan, Karl Marx, Ocean Vuong, Charlotte Bronte, Echiro Oda, Seneca, George Eliot, Oscar Wilde – and the screenplay of the Barbie movie. Contestants from all five year groups read their Spell – then spoke for four minutes on whatever thoughts and ideas the Spell provoked for them.

The rapt audience was bewitched by the heady mix of intellective mischief and learned commentary. In a sound-bite world, where attention spans have shrunk to a matter of seconds, the exercise of close listening for 20 chunks of four minutes is a solid effort. The reward for the audience was a host of mini-epiphanies and intellectual satori.

Those students of Kek who committed Spells to memory decades ago can very often remember and recite them to this day. What truer testimony could there be to the efficacy of this one-off methodology? The inspiration, allegedly, for Alan Bennett’s The History Boys, Kek taught notable Old Salopians such as Sir Michael Palin, Richard Ingrams and Paul Foot (the creators of Private Eye).


Not one to follow a syllabus, Kek was a maverick whose like is probably no longer at large on the contemporary educational landscape. The teaching profession is certainly more… well, professional now. But, anything that triggers the sparkle of unfettered academic play is surely a great thing?

As the 2024 edition of the McEachran Prize unfolded at Shrewsbury School, it was easy to imagine the spirit of Kek smiling down – twinkly-eyed and approving – on this evening of free-range ‘serious fun’ of a distinctively Salopian kind.

Essays https://leowinkley.com/essays/