Two years ago, Ellie Ball could barely bring herself to attend school. Today, the 16-year-old is planning to take four A-levels and hopes to study astrolaw – “It’s basically space law,” she explains – at university.
The transformation happened largely through a screen.
Four days a week, Ellie attends remote, on-screen lessons from home administered by the only UK-wide hybrid school provider. Then once a week, the girl who in years 8 and 9 could barely force herself to take the seven-minute drive to her local state school travels alone on train and tube, alongside crowds of commuters, to attend lessons in person.
“The journey takes an hour,” she said. “I don’t like it. But I do it happily because I absolutely love going to school now.”
This week Ellie’s school, the London-based London Park School (LPS) Hybrid – part of the private Dukes Education family of schools – was named a World’s Best School prize finalist in the overcoming adversity category, a shortlist that also includes a Polish school helping Ukrainian refugees, an American school serving the children of poor, migrant workers, and a school in the Amazon that has become an educational hub for about 4,000 young people.
LPS Hybrid, which will shortly open a sixth form has also been shortlisted for a Tes Schools award for pupil mental health initiative of the year.
The national conversation about children’s relationship with technology is becoming increasingly fraught, with schools restricting smartphones and ministers in the UK legislating a social media access ban.
For Ellie, the discussions feel as though they are happening in parallel to the reality of young people like her. “Screens aren’t bad; it’s the way they’re used that’s bad,” she said. “My mainstream school didn’t use screens and I was miserable there.
“Hybrid school uses screens but without them, I would not currently be in education – much less loving school, planning four A-levels and university.”
Ellie’s father echoed the concerns about the incoming ban, saying it would “potentially stop kids in the future from accessing all of the online GCSE provision that many kids like Ellie find invaluable”.
He added: “If the act goes ahead as it’s proposed, this will be one of the massive potential downsides. Our younger daughter also uses social media to engage with the outside world, she’s massively into books and theatre so follows all of her favourite authors and artists. Without it she would be really lost.”
A spokesperson for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, which is bringing in the social media ban, said it was not looking to ban “dedicated educational platforms, which support schoolwork and learning”.
Ahlam De Chausay, 16, used to find it hard to communicate with confidence. But after five years at LPS Hybrid, she happily speaks at open mornings, answering questions from sceptical, prospective parents. “The questions I get asked show parents can be nervous about the question of screen time,” she said. “They assume us students must be isolated and unable to communicate as a result of hours learning through screens.
after newsletter promotion
“But hybrid learning has helped me become more confident and social because I’ve been able to develop the necessary skills at my own pace. Also, because we have a lot of independent study periods built into the day and break times where we have to prove to the teachers that we’ve found things to do away from the screen, I’m more independent, too.”
Vikas Pota, the founder of T4 Education, which runs the World’s Best School prizes, said the school deserved its place in the overcoming adversity category: “In this country, we are seeing a crisis around student wellbeing, leading to absenteeism and poor education outcomes. There is a pressing need to recognise that students learn differently, and those with special educational needs often aren’t well served in mainstream schools.”
England’s schools are facing mounting pressures, with more than 170,000 children severely absent last year, missing at least half of their lessons. “If mainstream schooling isn’t catering to those diverse needs, it’s failing hundreds of thousands of students,” said Pota.
In his view, the significance of LPS Hybrid lies not in its use of technology but in what that technology allows it to do: “Through its hybrid online and in-person model, this school is changing learning outcomes in a really innovative way,” he said. “We have to recognise that technology, when used responsibly, does offer solutions to enduring challenges that our schools face.”
Ambreen Baig, a founder and co-director of LPS Hybrid, believes that “telling today’s young people to avoid screens is like telling previous generations to avoid books”. Instead of seeing her responsibility as being to limit access, she sees it as her job as an educator to teach her students to use it safely.
“The jobs of tomorrow demand digital literacy and technological confidence, and our hybrid learners very early on develop their skills in using screens safely,” she said.
Jamie Whiteside, also co-director of LPS Hybrid, argued that educational screen use at his school had little resemblance to the online environments that concerned many parents. “What we do on a screen is very simple: through screens, humans who know each other, talk to each other,” he said.
