Rather than offering effective personalised learning, introducing screen-based Ed Tech has opened up a whole new hilarious avenue of distraction in the classroom. I recently met an investor in an AI education firm that promised to “fix barriers to learning” by providing “neuro-personalised” software for classroom use. I asked him what happened if, instead of using the software, the children used a VPN line and watched the football? He frowned and said: “I don’t know.”

Well I decided to find out. I asked a large group of teenagers what actually happens when screens and AI learning were introduced to the classroom: the pupils use a VPN line and watch the football. During the hilarious conversation that followed, one of the teenagers laughed so hard he slid off the chair and started banging the floor with his fist, recalling all the nonsense they get up to in lessons. I urge all Headteachers to conduct similar focus groups before they are persuaded by the Head of Technology or Bursar or Business Manager of their wider academy trust into inflicting Ed Tech, or screens of any sort, on their pupils.

In January, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said AI could be “the biggest boost for education in the last 500 years”. She has clearly not stepped foot in a secondary school classroom recently. There are two particular problems with this boast: the useless software and physical devices themselves.

Firstly the software: it generally overpromises and under delivers. For instance, Third Space Learning promises under-resourced primary schools “a personal online maths tutor for every pupil who needs it”. The website shows happy children wearing headphones and plugged into a screen. The Headteacher of an East London primary school whose trust has bought the package for its multiple schools, tells me: “The children hate it. The chatbots can’t understand what the children are saying. The children just ask them stupid questions. It’s a complete waste of money.” Let us not forget that approximately 38% of children do not meet ‘expected standards’ for Year Six SATs.

Another popular bit of software is Sparx Learning that ‘automates’ data collection about pupils’ reading. How insanely joyless. Parents report doing Sparx for their children because they recognise it is an entirely box-ticking exercise that imparts no love of books. Publishers are blaming such ‘innovations’ for ruining childhood reading. Is it any wonder that a woeful two thirds of children don’t read for pleasure? Digital data do not tally with actual education, knowledge, understanding or skills for children.

Secondly: the device itself. Laptops or tablets in the classroom allow pupils to have infinite fun and avoid any teaching offered, whether screen-based or traditional chalk-and-talk.

Teenagers from Good and Outstanding secondary schools share what really happens – not what the AI EdTech salesmen promise – when individual screens are introduced into classrooms. Everything reported below happens while teachers are teaching or pupils are supposed to be getting on with work. While it is hilarious, it is not education by any stretch of the definition.

• We make notes of teachers’ number plates and in lessons search up their registration. At some point one of us will put up our hand and say, “Sir, I’m sorry to interrupt but I need to let you know your tax car is due to expire on November 3rd. That’s only four months away. Are you on it, Sir?” We do the same for MOTs.
• I was going through my smoothie phase and during one history lesson we browsed about 30 blenders working out which one to buy.
• Any international football tournament is a must-watch throughout all lessons.
• Classic games are Boxel Rebound with levels 36 and 49 being particularly difficult.
• Teachers do have ways of turning off all our browsing or gaming – the screen will burst into a red explosion – but then we just start up again.
• Chess.com is my go-to site in lessons. My friend and I play for hours in all classes.
• We have an ongoing competition in Economics to see who can keep the chatbot conversation going the longest. We are supposed to be following the PowerPoint lesson but instead go on car hire sites and talk to the chatbot. We ask if the car has car seats for triplets, then a roof rack, then we ask if actually we could also hire a trailer and could we drive the car to Benin and drop off there. We ask if they do charter flights and when the chatbot finally says: “This conversation is terminated,” we’ve lost.
• All the teachers know what’s going on. Anyone who is sitting with their laptop open, blanking out at the screen with their right hand moving on the three arrows is gaming.
• We all plug the extension in and start the game at the same time. The schools can’t ban the games because they are part of Google – it’s great.
• My favourite is Bullet Force. We spend Science shooting Russians.
• Run3, Slope Run, ShellShockers, Tetras and Snake are all-round classics that the whole back row plays at once.

The whole business of screen-based learning is impossible. No matter how brilliant the teacher, using laptops in classrooms turns teachers into digital policemen constantly slamming down laptops and tapping pupils on the shoulders saying in a resigned voice, ‘Stop playing that now.’ As one pupil explains, “No one ever stops.”

No wonder Sweden is investing in textbooks again, Norway is turning its back on the iPad for every pupil experiment and South Korea has halted an experiment to use AI textbooks in classrooms. Less Tetras more textbooks for British pupils too, please.

Joanna Gray is a writer and confidence coach.