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March 2, 2025 — 5.00am
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Smartphone use is banned within the gates of the junior school at Queenwood in Mosman.
“I don’t think we’ve really had an issue. Girls have brought phones and put them in a box,” says junior school head Anni Sandwell.
“But it has meant, after school, we don’t know what they’re doing.”
Students at Queenwood play on the monkeybars after their parents struck a deal with the school not to buy students a smartphone. Credit: Steven Siewert
Last year, Sandwell decided to change that. Armed with sociologist Jonathan Haidt’s popular book The Anxious Generation, which links social media and phones to heightened rates of teen anxiety and depression, Sandwell wanted to make a pact with parents: don’t let your child have a smartphone, full stop.
In an age of helicopter parenting, with many families tracking their children’s locations remotely, Sandwell did not know how parents would react. But she was pleasantly surprised.
“These parents were all really keen for their children to have a safe and happy childhood,” she said.
Haidt’s argument is that, before the 1990s, children experienced more risk and physical injuries, but fewer psychological ones. Now, children are overprotected in the real world, and under-protected online, where real danger lurks.
Queenwood mother Dr Rachel Holbrook had not given much thought to the growing presence of smartphones among younger students before reading the letter.
The head of the Queenwood junior school, Anni Sandwell (yellow jacket), with parents and students. Credit: Steven Siewert
“I then knew that I had to; I had to take a position and stick to it to protect my daughters.”