Pymble Wise Phone Initiative

The Pymble Wise Phone Initiative ensures your daughter has access to an age-appropriate phone with all the valuable features she needs but none of the distractions or harmful apps and content that are inappropriate for her developing young mind. The phone’s features are managed by the College and your daughter will be given access to safe and helpful features based on her age. Please refer to the ‘Customised to your daughter’s age’ section above for specific details.

We understand that mobile phones play an important role in keeping families connected with their children. However, the negative impact of social media and smartphone addiction on young people is well supported by research. As a school, we believe we are in a unique position to work with our families and address this issue by providing a solution that promotes responsible and appropriate use of this technology and allows our students to learn, play and develop positive relationships in real life.

The success of this initiative comes down to collective commitment. As a College, we have committed to supplying, funding and managing a safer phone option for students in Years 4 to 8. As a parent, you have a unique chance to choose to back this initiative and affect positive change for your daughter, her cohort and our wider community. If we all commit to a wiser mobile phone choice as the only option for Pymble students in these year groups then, yes, every student will use it and delay having access to social media on their phones until they are old enough to view and engage in the content safely and appropriately.

It’s natural to feel anxious, especially when it involves something as important as your daughter’s connection to her social world. Framing the College-managed phone under the Pymble Wise Phone Initiative as a tool for empowerment that everyone else will be using, rather than a restriction, could help your conversations. You can highlight that the phone will still allow her to stay connected with friends, in a healthier, more balanced, and inclusive way.

We realise some students may try to access social media on other devices at home. As part of our digital citizenship education, we encourage families to maintain open discussions about responsible technology use and the importance of trust. We also suggest setting clear boundaries for access to other devices, including home computers or tablets. An easy win is to ban the use of tablets and laptops in the bedroom, encourage study in an open area of your home (not on a desk in her room), and set time limits for recreational use. Ultimately, fostering a relationship of trust and communication will help your daughter understand why these boundaries are important for her wellbeing. 

Often in life, the most difficult decisions we make are the ones that reap the greatest benefit. In this case, your daughter’s wellbeing is the priceless benefit. You might like to explain to her that the phone is a temporary step to help her grow into using technology wisely. This phone will still allow her to stay connected with family and friends, but in a way that protects her from some of the distractions, pressures and negative aspects of social media and other apps. Remind her that, when the time is right, she’ll have the option to use a smartphone responsibly, along with the rest of her cohort. 

We understand that some students may already have a smartphone. We ask that you swap your daughter’s existing phone for our new College-managed phone under the Pymble Wise Phone Initiative to create an even playing field for all students in her cohort. You can then box and keep her smartphone for a couple of years, use JB Hifi’s trade in service to swap it for store credit, or find a new home for it by selling or gifting it to an appropriate older person.

We firmly believe the research that says students should not have access to social media until they are 16. You can find more thoughtful insights on this decision at sites like Wait Mate and The Better Phone Project.

Social media apps will not be available on the mobile phone until the student is in Year 10. At this stage, she can unenrol from the Pymble Wise Phone Program and have full management of her device, including wisely installing appropriate apps of her choice.

Yes, you can delay giving her a mobile phone until you think she is ready. We suggest you take and keep the phone selected for the Pymble Wise Phone Initiative now so you have it on hand for that time.

Smart watches will not be allowed in the Junior School from 2025. Most parents tell us they chose this solution to track their daughter and communicate with them without giving them a full smartphone, however we are aware that students can also access social media on their smart watch. We strongly recommend swapping your daughter’s smart watch to a College-managed phone selected for the Pymble Wise Phone Initiative to achieve the same outcome but with greater safety and control.

When we launched the new Pymble Wise Phone Initiative movement to incoming Year 7 2025 parents in late 2024, the feedback was so overwhelmingly positive that we moved from an ‘opt in’ to an ‘opt out’ model. We also decided to offer it to all students in Years 4, 5, 6 and 8 (2025). We have every confidence all students and families in these year groups will unanimously join the Pymble Wise Phone Party and become trailblazers for a better online world for our girls.

College-managed mobile phones can be brought to school but should remain in your daughter’s locker during the day. If you need to contact her during the day, you can call the appropriate sub-school for assistance.

In later stages of the Pymble Wise Phone Initiative, your daughter will have access to WhatsApp. She can connect with family and friends via this app and join group video calls and share content within those safe groups. Until then, iMessages will come through as SMS messages to the College-managed phone. The phone has good options for device tracking, ‘tap’ payments, and messaging that works nicely across iOS and Android. In addition, apps such as Life360, Spriggy, and WhatsApp all provide true cross-platform functionality.

Many families are ahead of the game and have locked down an existing phone for their child. You can choose to continue to manage the device yourself, but our preference is for the whole cohort to get on board and access the simplified College-managed phone. Should you go down your own path, we will arrange a conversation with the Deputy Principal Students and / or Head of Junior School to walk through the proposed solution and help ensure it will keep your daughter safe.

Yes. Opal and Credit Cards can be added to the phone’s wallet to allow your daughter to make tap payments. We recommend Spriggy as a tap payment system.

The phone comes with two rear-facing cameras and a front-facing camera. However, during the First Steps stage (Years 4 to 5), the cameras will be disabled. As your daughter moves into the Safe Traveller stage (Years 5 to 7), the cameras are enabled so she can capture memories. Inappropriate camera use will result in consequences, including disabling the cameras for an appropriate length of time.

You can buy appropriate self-repair kits from iFixIt. Pymble stocks some of these kits and we are able to complete this repair for you at a small cost to cover the parts and labour. Shop for spare parts here.

No, but Apple gives you a way to link your daughter’s iWatch to your phone instead with their ‘iWatch for Kids’ feature. Please note that smart watches are not permitted in the classroom during lessons.

The phone will not have access to the Internet and YouTube while the school manages functions and features. As a school we will never play ‘big brother’ on our students’ personal devices, which is what a ‘safe internet’ would require us to do.

In Year 10, when your daughter un-enrols from the Pymble Wise Phone Initiative program, we will provide families with information on how to arrange restricted Internet access along with a home network strategy on how to keep this safe.

No. The College will manage the apps and features available but has no insight into how each phone is being used. For families who wish to monitor phone use while their daughter is enrolled in the Pymble Wise Phone Initiative, we recommend using a Google Family Link and discussing with your daughter how best to support healthy phone use.

No data on the use of the phone during the Pymble Wise Phone Project will be collected by the College.

For families who wish to monitor phone use while their daughter is enrolled in the program, we recommend using a Google Family Link and discussing with your daughter how best to support healthy phone use.

We will make Signal, Telegram and WeChat apps available on the app store for you to download and use.