CETNS Smartphone Voluntary Agreement
In 2025 CETNS Parent Association offered families the opportunity to sign a
Smartphone Voluntary Agreement. Here the Parent Association explain what this is.
What is a Voluntary Smartphone Collective Agreement?
The use of smartphones is part of daily life for people of all ages and comes with
certain benefits. However, there is growing awareness that smartphone use (through
access to social media), can expose children to risks. This includes increased risk of
anxiety and cyberbullying, as well as exposure to harmful, disturbing or even abusive
interactions and content. Increased phone use can also lead to less play time,
physical activity, and family time. Because of these concerns, many experts
recommend delaying giving children a smartphone until at least after primary school
or age 14 or 16.
If most parents delay, this becomes the new normal, and children don’t feel left out.
A voluntary collective agreement asks parents to commit to waiting to buy their child
a smartphone until at least after they leave primary school.
Some key points about the agreement:
- It is about delaying, not denying, the purchase of a smartphone for children.
- Smartphones are internet enabled phones with applications. The agreement does not include basic mobile phones that can call and text but have no internet access. For parents who wish to buy a device to keep in touch with their child, this link suggests alternatives to buying a child a smartphone.
- The agreement recognises and respects that every family has different
priorities and opinions about smartphone usage.
- It is a voluntary agreement (parents do not have to sign it and they can opt out at any time). The idea is to
provide support for parents who do wish to delay buying their child a
smartphone.
- Parents sign up anonymously (we won’t ask for your or your child’s name)
CETNS Smartphone Agreement
In 2025 the Parent Association worked with the parents, teachers and students to set
up the CETNS Smartphone Voluntary Agreement. In total 68% of the school has
agreed to wait to buy a smartphone until at least after primary school!
The results by class are as follows:
Percentage of each Class Signed up to the Smartphone
Agreement 2026
For parents, we hope that it will be helpful to be able to show your children that most
of their class will wait to get a smartphone until at least after primary school.
In setting up this Agreement CETNS parents join many other schools in D15 and D7
that have done the same.
We can now show children that it is completely normal to not have a
smartphone in primary school.
Thank you,
CETNS Parent Association