Petition to: Heather McNeil, Principal, Subiaco Primary School; The Subiaco Primary School Board; The Western Australia Department of Education.

Started by: Concerned parents of the Subiaco Primary School community

Summary:

As parents of children attending Subiaco Primary School and members of the school community we are asking the school to end their compulsory requirement that every family purchase an iPad for their child from Year 4 onwards.

If it is demonstrated that devices are essential for teaching within classrooms of upper primary students, we move that the school provide shared classroom devices. This ensures that devices are used for specific lessons, stay at school, and are managed under the school’s IT and e-safety policies.

Our objection is to a compulsory, parent-funded mandate that puts a personal iPad in every nine-year-old's school bag, every day. A school mandate accelerates daily device use, normalises it from age nine, and removes the ability of individual parents to set the pace they think is right for their own child.

Our Ask:

We respectfully call on Subiaco Primary School and the School Board to:

1. End the compulsory Year 4 iPad requirement, beginning with the next year 4 intake in 2027.

2. Publish the educational rationale the policy currently rests on, including all evidence considered.

3. If there are demonstrable advantages to the use of technology within the school, that the school move to a school-provided, shared classroom device model for these primary years, where iPads are used for specific lessons, stay at school, and are managed under the school’s IT and e-safety policies, breaking the daily-carry pattern that drives after-school screen use.

4. Open a genuine consultation with parents and teachers before any continuation of technology device policy and convene a parent–teacher working group to design the shared-device model.

The details:

We believe a shared, school-managed model delivers benefits of classroom technology without the equity problems and developmental downsides of compulsory all-day ownership. Here is why.

1. This mandate is a school choice, and the rest of Australia is moving the other way.

A compulsory, parent-funded primary iPad program is not a Western Australian or national requirement. It is a specific decision our school has made, and the clear policy trend across Australia is in the opposite direction:

Victoria has banned it outright - The Victorian Department of Education's Student Digital Device Provision policy states that schools "are not required to provide students with digital devices to own, or keep, on a one-to-one basis," and limits Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs to secondary students. Following an October 2025 announcement, from 2027 Victorian schools "must not invite or allow families to purchase or bring their own student digital devices for primary students to use at school in Years F-6." An entire Australian state has banned exactly what Subiaco Primary is mandating.

NSW makes primary BYOD strictly optional - In NSW public schools, BYOD is "an optional program where parents or carers can provide personal digital devices." Schools such as Baulkham Hills North Public School state plainly that their program "is not compulsory," that "no student will be disadvantaged by not bringing their own device," and that the school provides a device to any child who needs one.

Some schools are reversing course entirely - Lucas Heights Community School (NSW) announced that from 2026, students in Kindergarten to Year 6 "will no longer be required to bring their own laptop or iPad to school," with the school providing devices for classroom use instead. This is precisely the model we are asking for.

It isn't required within other WA public schools - Comparable WA metropolitan schools run similar iPad programs on a voluntary basis. Churchlands Primary School, for example, states that its program is voluntary and that "students who do not have their own device have some access to school iPads." A compulsory Year 4 mandate in Western Australia is the exception, not the norm.

If neighbouring schools, and an entire state government, can deliver classroom technology without forcing every family to buy a device, so can we.

2. The educational evidence does not support 1:1 devices in primary years

Evidence shows that putting a personal device in every child's hands, all day, is not shown to improve learning and what matters is how technology is used, not whether every child owns one.

The OECD, drawing on PISA data across dozens of countries, has repeatedly found "no appreciable improvements in student achievement in reading, mathematics or science in the countries that had invested heavily" in classroom technology. The OECD also found that students who use devices moderately and for learning can show improvement, but that heavy leisure use and in-class distraction are associated with disproportionally lower results. Across OECD countries, 65% of students reported being distracted by their own device use, and 59% by other students' devices, in at least some maths lessons.

The UK's Education Endowment Foundation, one of the most respected education-research bodies in the world, puts it simply: "buying a tablet for every pupil is unlikely to boost pupil attainment. But the pedagogy behind it can." Technology should "supplement, rather than replace, other teaching activities."

In January 2026, educational neuroscientist Dr Jared Cooney Horvath testified to the US Senate Commerce Committee that, across PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS data covering millions of students, "heavy classroom screen exposure is not improving learning outcomes at scale." His testimony has been viewed more than two million times. His analysis is genuinely contested by other researchers and we present it as an influential argument, not settled proof, but it reflects a serious and growing concern among educators.

Sweden, once a leader in classroom digitalisation, is reversing course, investing roughly €100 million in printed textbooks and handwriting. Its Karolinska Institute argued for a return to "acquiring knowledge through printed textbooks and teacher expertise."

The case for shared, purposeful, and teacher-led device use in specific lessons is reasonable. The case for individual, unmanaged device ownership for all upper-primary students every day is not supported by this evidence.

3. What we can already see at our own school

Up until Year 3, the after-school scene at our school is what you'd hope to see: children running, climbing, inventing games, negotiating with each other. From Year 4 onwards, a noticeable subset of children instead sit on a wall, either alone or in small groups, on their iPads watching videos or playing games. It isn't every child, and it isn't every day, but the shift is visible to anyone at the school soon after 3:10pm.

This isn't a coincidence. Once a device is in a child's bag every school day, the path of least resistance after the bell is to pull it out. And what gets crowded out is exactly what nine and ten-year olds need most. In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt documents how the replacement of a "play-based childhood" with a "phone-based" one, a transition he places between roughly 2010 and 2015, coincides with a synchronised rise in anxiety, depression, self-harm and loneliness among young people across multiple countries. His central argument is that free, physical, peer-led play is how children build social competence, resilience, and emotional regulation, and that screens systematically displace it. A school-issued device requirement makes that displacement harder for parents to push back against, not easier.

It is also worth noting that mobile phones are now banned in Australian state schools, including within WA, to reduce distraction and encourage face-to-face interaction. Several states explicitly include tablets in those bans. It is reasonable to ask why we are simultaneously requiring a tablet in every school bag.

4. Devices are safer when managed centrally

Online safety should not depend on every family being technically confident enough to configure a child’s personal device correctly. The eSafety Commissioner recommends parental controls, privacy settings, supervision and regular review, but also makes clear that no parental-control tool is 100% effective. That matters because a compulsory personal-device model pushes the practical safety burden onto individual families. Some parents are highly confident configuring Apple IDs, app limits, web filters, communications settings, location sharing, messaging restrictions and screen-time controls. Others are not. A school policy should not assume that every family has the same technical capacity, time or confidence to manage a child’s internet-connected device safely.

Cyberbullying and access to inappropriate content are of particular concern. eSafety’s research shows that cyberbullying is already common among Australian children, including primary-aged children: among 10- to 12-year-olds, 46% had experienced cyberbullying at some point and 34% had experienced it in the previous 12 months. Once every child carries a personal device every school day, the opportunities for exclusion, group-chat conflict, image sharing, teasing, and after-school escalation increase. These risks are not limited to social media accounts. They can arise through messaging, games, shared documents, photos, videos, comments and any platform where children can communicate with one another. eSafety also reported in September 2025 that almost one-third of Australian children aged 10–17 had seen sexually explicit images or videos online; 23% had seen such material in the past 12 months; and 12% had seen violent sexual material online. This supports a careful argument that young children with daily access to personal devices face risks beyond distraction: accidental exposure, peer sharing, image-based abuse, grooming pathways and harmful content.

This is why a school-managed shared-device model is the safer and more proportionate approach. Devices can still be used for genuine educational purposes, but they can be configured centrally, filtered through school systems, limited to approved apps and websites, supervised during use, and kept at school when the lesson is over. That model preserves the educational benefit of technology while reducing the risk that a school mandate unintentionally expands unsupervised online access, cyberbullying pathways and social harm among primary-aged children.

5. The cost falls unfairly on families and clashes with WA's own equity rules

Western Australia's public schools are free, and primary (K–6) voluntary contributions are capped at $60 per child per year. A compulsory iPad mandate sits in direct contrast with that principle. An iPad costs roughly $500-700 or more, before a compulsory protective case, optional insurance, and parent-purchased apps. Independent modelling reported in 2026 put technology requirements for software and devices at $683 a year for WA families, well above the national average of $480.

For many families, that is a significant expense. The WA Department of Education's own rules require that, for any compulsory program, "an educational activity with a similar outcome" must be provided at no cost so that no student is disadvantaged regardless of their financial circumstances. A mandate that effectively requires a several-hundred-dollar purchase to participate fully in class is hard to reconcile with free, equitable public education.

To close:

The financial cost to families is significant, the developmental and social risks are real, the educational evidence is, at best, mixed. Other government schools, and an entire Australian state, manage without this requirement. On every count, dropping the mandate in favour of shared school devices is the reasonable course.

We thank the Principal and staff for the work they do for our children every day, and we ask them to consider this request seriously and in the constructive spirit in which it is offered.

If you are a Subiaco Primary parent, carer, grandparent, or community member who shares these concerns, please sign and share.

Sources referenced in this petition include: the Victorian Department of Education Student Digital Device Provision policy; NSW Department of Education BYOD policy and individual school BYOD pages (Baulkham Hills North PS, Lucas Heights Community School); Churchlands Primary School BYOD information; the OECD reports "Students, Computers and Learning" (2015), "Managing Screen Time" (2024) and PISA 2022 results; the UK Education Endowment Foundation guidance "Using Digital Technology to Improve Learning"; Dr Jared Cooney Horvath's written testimony to the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation (January 2026); Jonathan Haidt, "The Anxious Generation" (2024); reporting on Sweden's return to printed textbooks; and Western Australia Department of Education contributions and charges guidance; eSafety Commissioner reports from 2025 and 2026.