{"id":560598,"date":"2026-08-06T08:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T08:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/560598\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T08:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T08:10:12","slug":"new-plymouth-school-ditches-ipads-goes-back-to-blackboards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/560598\/","title":{"rendered":"New Plymouth school ditches iPads, goes back to blackboards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Screens have slowly made their way into the education system \u2013 but one school has decided to ditch the devices for a more hands-on approach.<\/p>\n

\u014cmata School has used iPads in classrooms since 2011, and almost reached a 1:1 ratio in every classroom.<\/p>\n

But after reading some research, the school has decided to shelve them in the junior school, and are now trialling no iPads in the classroom.<\/p>\n

At the beginning, Year 1 and 2 teacher Leanne Bartlett said a couple of children did ask where the iPads had gone.<\/p>\n

\"Ōmata<\/p>\n

\u014cmata School teacher Leanne Bartlett. (Source: Seven Sharp)<\/p>\n

“I explained we put them away and we haven\u2019t had a problem since.”<\/p>\n

Bartlett added with the switch to chalk and blackboards, the students can “feel the writing and feel the numbers” as they work.<\/p>\n

“The kids seem a lot more settled, you can see it around the class, a lot more engaged with each other, a lot more conversations happening.”<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not an all-out ban on technology, as laptops will be introduced in years four and five.<\/p>\n

But for now, the iPads will stay shut away.<\/p>\n

‘Hooks to hang the learning on’<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Paediatric Society researcher Julie Cullen. (Source: Seven Sharp)<\/p>\n

Paediatric Society of New Zealand researcher Julie Cullen said the reliance on digital platforms as a learning tool varied from school to school and even individual classrooms.<\/p>\n

“But overall, New Zealand kids have higher use of screens compared to most other countries in the world, both in classrooms and at home,” she said. <\/p>\n

Cullen said there was growing evidence to support more “traditional learning tools”, such as handwriting and reading from books.<\/p>\n

“They are multi-sensory experiences, they give lots of hooks to hang the learning on. Handwriting, even for maths, gives students more time to process the information,” Cullen said.<\/p>\n

“Until students have fluency in their core skills of reading, writing and maths, those are really useful learning tools alongside learning about technologies.”<\/p>\n

The use of digital technologies could increase as students became more fluent towards the end of primary school, she said.<\/p>\n

Studies show benefits drop away after more than an hour of use<\/p>\n

Cullen said more frequent screen use in learning had been linked to poorer learning outcomes.<\/p>\n

“About an hour a day, even at high school, has been shown in large studies and reports to support learning, and then after that, those gains drop away or can even reverse.<\/p>\n

“That balance is important, not just for educational outcomes but also for young people’s health and wellbeing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Screens have slowly made their way into the education system \u2013 but one school has decided to ditch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84,111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-560598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-education","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}