Game over! UK school seizes consoles from pupils’ homes

Move to improve behaviour and exam results

It’s well known that technology can be a distraction — especially with youngsters.

So teachers from King Solomon Academy (KSA) in west London, are tackling the issue head-on by confiscating Xboxes, PlayStations and mobiles from pupils’ homes in order to improve their behaviour and exam results, British newspapers have reported.

The measure was introduced to encourage good behaviour and exam grades, according to Max Haimendorf, the principal.

“What has happened more than once is that the parent has come into the school and said, ‘I do not want my child using this. I want you to keep it until they are better behaved,” he told The Sunday Times.

Haimendorf said the parents might either agree to a “symbolic” confiscation of the item or bring it into the school and give it to staff.

The academy’s radical approach to an issue that has become a battleground for parents concerned by the effect of unlimited screen time and computer games on their children is revealed in a new book by Barnaby Lenon, the former headmaster of Harrow School, published this month.

In Much Promise, Lenon singles out KSA as a model for other secondary schools and writes that the school’s deputy head “confiscates games consoles from pupils’ homes”.

Haimendorf has pioneered a model in which the school acts almost as a second family, working with parents to improve teenagers’ behaviour, wellbeing and performance, the newspapers said.