Researching the Wise Phone at Pymble

An important change in our mobile phone usage policy for students is opening the door to a new research project.

The Pymble Wise Phone initiative will provide students (Years 4 to 8) with mobile phones that have no access to the internet or social media, if parents wish their daughters to have a phone at all. The College will fund the phone and parents will fund the SIM and plan. A key feature is that the College will identify and manage apps and features students can access on their phones as they arrive at different age brackets.

This initiative is generating much interest and support as students and parents begin discussing their plans to purchase phones over Christmas and consider the benefits of switching to the College-selected phone, if and when the purchase would be made.

The changes we are implementing have been made with the guidance of Emeritus Professor Donna Cross, alongside our Student Wellbeing team. Professor Cross is a global expert in interventions that support the prevention of bullying, cyberbullying and associated mental health harms among young people and sits on our Healthcare Advisory Panel.

The Pymble Institute conducted a literature review to support the College’s communications with parents, and we are now designing research into the intersection of older childhood, adolescence and mobile phone and social media use. Our areas of inquiry include what parents and students see as the benefits and disadvantages of this approach in sub-areas of friendships, non-tech recreation, face-to-face communication, time usage and online safety.

Our research methods will embrace our commitment to student voice. We will be using a mixed-methods approach, including the qualitative methodologies offered by social labs and youth participatory action research. Exploratory meetings with student researchers who have already completed school projects and Sokratis research in the area of children, adolescents and technology usage are now underway to collaboratively generate research questions.

We look forward to sharing our work in this important area as it evolves.