On 12 October, Western Australia’s Premier, Roger Cook, announced a six-month trial to ban “unnecessary screen use” in early years classrooms across the state.
From Term 1, 2027, Ten public schools will take part in the six-month screen use pilot for Kindergarten to Year 2 students, trialling a “back to basics” approach to students' use of digital devices – such as laptops and iPads – in the classroom.
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In a statement, Cook said schools taking part in the innovative pilot will each receive $50,000 to invest in screen-free learning resources, including printed educational materials, workbooks and classroom equipment.
The move comes as schools and policymakers across Australia weigh up how, and how much, technology should feature in the early years of learning.
Leon Straker, John Curtin Distinguished Professor at the Curtin School of Allied Health in Perth, has helped shape national thinking on how young children should engage with screens.
In 2018, he co-chaired the group behind Early Childhood Australia’s first national Statement on young children and digital technologies, which helps educators decide when screens belong in early learning and when they don’t. In 2025, he was back as co-chair when the Statement was updated.
Learning to ‘swim between the flags’
Professor Straker said screens are a powerful part of everyday Australian life, but they carry real risks, and the community shares responsibility for teaching children to use them well.
“A helpful way of thinking about screens is how we think about the beach,” Professor Straker told The Educator.
“While there are significant risks for children at the beach, we minimise those risks by supervising children and teaching them skills so that by the time they are adolescents they can enjoy the socialising, physical activity, engagement with nature the beach offers whilst minimising the risks independently.”
Professor Straker said the timing of the WA trial makes sense, and schools are the right place to start.
“Given the community concerns about children’s screen use, and the declining achievement of Australian children in national and international academic testing, it is appropriate that governments are trying to support wise use of screens by children in schools,” he said.
“Schools are an incredibly important place for children to learn how to use screens well. Nearly all Australian children attend school, helping to ensure equitable access to learning the critical skills to use minimise risk and maximise benefit.”
The research gap few are talking about
Professor Straker pointed out that while there is an “enormous” amount of research on how screen use is associated with child health and development, the evidence is surprisingly limited.
“Most of the research is about the time children spend using screen for recreation. While some of this can help inform screen use in school, it is not directly transferable,” he said.
“Most of the research is about the time children spend using screens. Across the whole spectrum of children’s health and development the evidence is quite weak that anything other than extremely high durations of use are consistently related.”
Professor Straker said research that considers the content (e.g. what they are doing on the screen) and context (e.g. who they are using screens with) suggests that these non-time aspects of screen use are at least if not more important than the time spent.
“For example, age-appropriate program content is related to better psychosocial outcomes, compared to age-inappropriate content,” he said, adding that parent-child co-viewing of programs is related to better cognitive outcomes compared to a child viewing alone.
Rethinking the clock in early years classrooms
When asked whether restricting screen time in classrooms could improve learning outcomes, or whether a more balanced approach was needed, Professor Straker said the amount of time children spend on screens is unlikely to be the deciding factor.
“Time is easy to understand and communicate, so it can have a useful role in policy and guidance,” he said.
“However, educators understand that it’s more about what children are doing in school that determines their learning outcomes. So probably the best way to enhance learning outcomes is to support teachers to know how best to deploy screen-based and non-screen-based activities to suit the learning needs of the children in their class.”