Independent Schools Magazine Spotlights Digital Wellbeing at RGS
Featured in the May edition of Independent Schools Magazine, RGS Worcester’s approach to smartphone use and digital wellbeing has been highlighted in a special feature exploring the School’s use of the Blackout app and its impact across the School community.
The feature examines how RGS Worcester has been piloting the app to help reduce smartphone distraction during the school day, while still allowing pupils access to their devices when genuinely needed. The article includes insight from Assistant Head, Director of Innovation and RGSW International, Mr John Jones, and Senior Deputy Head, Mr Lloyd Beecham, who discuss the thinking behind the initiative and the positive outcomes already seen across the School.
We are delighted to share the article below.
A Digital Solution to a Digital Problem
RGS Worcester has been piloting an app which has been designed to reduce smartphone distraction while still allowing essential access when needed. Now rolled out across the school, Assistant Head, Director of Innovation and RGSW International, John Jones, and RGS Worcester Senior Deputy Head, Lloyd Beecham, explain more about this new approach and what the outcomes from it have been.
“At RGS Worcester, we have always been committed to helping pupils use technology responsibly. As mobile phones and social media continue to have a profound impact on wellbeing and development, we recognise the importance of reducing distraction, promoting balance and safeguarding our community, while also teaching self-regulation.
Our policy has long required phones to be switched off during the school day. Yet policy alone, as many schools will recognise, is not enough. Compliance varied, enforcement absorbed pastoral time, and in unsupervised spaces the rules were difficult to uphold. The issue was not a lack of expectation; it was a lack of consistency.
This is why, in 2024/25, we introduced Blackout, a mobile phone management app, initially across Years Seven to Nine before extending it to all year groups. The thinking was straightforward: Blackout provides a digital solution to a digital problem. It reduces smartphone distraction while still allowing essential access when needed.
We have not banned smartphones entirely, and for good reason. They matter for pupil safety when travelling to and from school, provide reassurance for parents through tracking and collection arrangements. For older pupils in particular, phones serve as payment devices and proof of identification, meaning that a blanket ban or collecting phones at scale is impractical, and alternatives such as pouches are a step in the right direction but open to misuse and hacks. Blackout offers a far more effective and manageable solution, one that enforces our existing policy while actively promoting responsible use.
Each day at 8.30am, pupils’ phones enter blackout mode, restricting apps beyond basic native functions. Devices are also switched off at registration. In the event of an emergency or a medical requirement, pupils can exit Blackout using a code, which is logged by the school for follow-up. Crucially, the app does not track location, monitor content or collect personal usage data beyond minimal metadata. In a landscape where digital oversight can quickly raise concerns, this distinction proved fundamental to building trust with families.
Open communication with parents and pupils was key from the start. We addressed misconceptions about tracking and data, completed a full Data Protection Impact Assessment prior to launch and invited families to live webinars throughout the process. Following the pilot, we had universal parental support for continuation, and the transition was seamless.
The rollout now covers all year groups, with a clear zero tolerance expectation: phones are neither used nor seen during the school day. Staff have also been reminded not to use their own phones publicly, which matters. Expectations only carry weight when they are modelled consistently by adults. The Sixth Form operates within its own framework, with phones permitted only in the Sixth Form Centre, reflecting the greater autonomy that comes with that stage of education.
The impact has been both immediate and sustained. Across the year, there were zero recorded phone-related behaviour incidents in Years Seven to Nine. Confiscations, once routine, became rare. Safeguarding concerns linked to filming in private spaces were eliminated entirely. The most significant changes were in the spaces a policy alone could never fully reach: corridors, registration, social time and the quieter moments between lessons. Pupils simply talked more. One parent noted, ‘Since there was no mobile phone accessible, my son spent time chatting with friends.’
Staff also noted that pupils arrived to lessons less distracted, and lesson pace benefitted as a result. Pupils retain agency throughout. They can exit the app, but staff are notified on the dashboard when they do. Legitimate needs are accommodated without friction, and misuse is addressed through established pastoral systems. The framework creates what we think of as agency within accountability, conditions in which genuine self-regulation can develop.
This approach sits within a broader vision of what technology should look like in a school. RGS Worcester holds Apple Distinguished School status, was the first school globally to receive Apple’s AI Gold accreditation and has a new Innovation Centre currently under construction onsite. We are deeply committed to digital learning. That is precisely why we take seriously the question of when and how devices are used. The aim is not to remove technology from young people’s lives but to ensure it serves, rather than competes with, their education.
We will continue to review the impact, but the early signs are very promising. What matters most is finding an approach that balances wellbeing, safeguarding and focus while also supporting pupils to develop responsible habits that prepare them for life in a digital age. And so far, Blackout is delivering a solution that really works.”
