One of London’s most prestigious schools has begun confiscating games consoles from pupils’ homes in a bid to improve behaviour.

King Solomon Academy, in Marylebone, has taken away PlayStations, Xboxes and mobile phones with the parents’ consent.

Headmaster Max Haimendorf said parents have come into the school to hand over certain items for confiscation.

He told the Sunday Times: “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.”

Mr Haimendorf added: “Where specific children have said, ‘I have been up late playing PlayStation’ or ‘up late on the internet’, there definitely have been circumstances where [they] have been clearly exhausted in classrooms.”

In 2015 the academy achieved the best GCSE results for a non-selective school in England.

 

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Its radical measure was praised by a former headmaster of Harrow School, Barnaby Lenon, in a new book published this month.

In Much Promise, Mr Lenon describes seeing a pile of games consoles in the corner of the deputy head’s office at King Solomon Academy.

“Having worked in a boarding school most of my life, I was always confiscating games consoles if boys were spending too much time misusing them and not doing their homework, or staying up late to play games and getting too little sleep,” he told the Sunday Times.

“I have come across schools in which boys have stayed up all night to play games like Call of Duty across time zones. Parents need to be helped by schools to set limits on children’s use of these devices.”

“That is why it is great when schools like KSA make it easier for parents to enforce mutually agreed policies.”

EVENING STANDARD

 

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