Excerpts from an article in The Sunday Times, 2026
“Heritage School – thought to be the only screen-free school in Britain – has become a pioneer of eth type of education many parents are desperately seeking for their children.
Pupils read real books and text books (no ebooks), learn a style of calligraphic handwriting, study paintings by Old Masters, memorise poems, go on walks and draw what they have seen, and become avid readers.
They also get the second best GCSE results in the city, after the Perse School… The School, which is in a house in the city centre, turns out children who can focus for long periods, who are not addicted to screens and have a very low incidence of adolescent metal health problems.
Pupils have gone to top universities, medical schools and art colleges and have become engineers, teachers, academics, artists and medics.
[Mr ] Fletcher did not expect to be a model for a new movement but now finds himself inadvertently being a hero to one.”
Excerpt from The Spectator, 2023
“Started by Jason and Fiona Fletcher in a little townhouse off Trumpington Street, the pupils go on nature walks each morning,* draw their bounty afterwards while listening to classical music, then begin a day of gentle but deeply rigorous screen-free lessons in the hands of wonderful teachers. The bar is raised high, and all the children reach it. As often with the best schools, it’s not ‘shiny’ (there are no gleaming IT suites, tennis courts and theatres); just a deeply thoughtful space created by passionate teachers with a vision. The pupils are calm, happy, reflective and eager for knowledge.”
Excerpt from report on ITV News
“You won’t find any smart phones her at Heritage School in Cambridge. The independent school doesn’t allow them at all and that’s the same rules for the older pupils as it is for the very youngest. It’s a view shared by a growing number of schools, and pupils here seem supportive”
“It enables you to be more attentive in class and also at break time you can interact with your peers without a screen getting in the way.”
“It increased focus and the community in school.”
“It is really helpful. We have real social interactions. It’s just great.”
Excerpt from The Daily Express
“[Heritage’s] strong values are borne out by impeccable results: last year, Heritage achieved the second-best GCSE results in Cambridge, a city overrun with high-performing schools. They also set the school apart from most, if not all, other schools in the UK, as well as from the general thrust of national educational policy, through which children are fed a staple diet of tech.”
“As I glimpse into a classroom at Heritage full of engaged, focused pupils, not a screen in sight, I think back to Fletcher’s words: “What we actually want as educators is direct access to the thoughts of the child. I want to know it’s not being manipulated by AI or ChatGBT or cut and paste. So just write it in an exercise book. It’s so clean. It’s so pure. Why would we not want that?”
Mr Fletcher’s Letter to The Times, published 2025
Sir,
I share Niall Ferguson’s concern about the catastrophic effect of AI upon cognitive development. Founding in 2007 the UK’s only screen free school, we have established precisely what he calls for: an oasis (or, as he calls it, a “cloister”) from which devices are excluded, where learning is centred around books, handwriting, discussion and real world activities and relationships. Our academic outcomes prove that it works (74 per cent of GCSEs graded 9-7), and we see very low incidence of mental health issues. My question is: where is Ferguson going to find university students “capable of coping with the discipline of the cloister” if schools are habituating them to screen-dependence? If we are to avoid the new Dark Age of which Ferguson warns, we urgently need a “screen-free schools” movement to complement the “smartphone-free childhood” one.
Jason Fletcher
Headmaster, Heritage School Cambridge
Excerpts from an article in The Sunday Times, 2026
“Heritage School – thought to be the only screen-free school in Britain – has become a pioneer of eth type of education many parents are desperately seeking for their children.
Pupils read real books and text books (no ebooks), learn a style of calligraphic handwriting, study paintings by Old Masters, memorise poems, go on walks and draw what they have seen, and become avid readers.
They also get the second best GCSE results in the city, after the Perse School… The School, which is in a house in the city centre, turns out children who can focus for long periods, who are not addicted to screens and have a very low incidence of adolescent metal health problems.
Pupils have gone to top universities, medical schools and art colleges and have become engineers, teachers, academics, artists and medics.
[Mr ] Fletcher did not expect to be a model for a new movement but now finds himself inadvertently being a hero to one.”
Excerpt from The Spectator, 2023
“Started by Jason and Fiona Fletcher in a little townhouse off Trumpington Street, the pupils go on nature walks each morning,* draw their bounty afterwards while listening to classical music, then begin a day of gentle but deeply rigorous screen-free lessons in the hands of wonderful teachers. The bar is raised high, and all the children reach it. As often with the best schools, it’s not ‘shiny’ (there are no gleaming IT suites, tennis courts and theatres); just a deeply thoughtful space created by passionate teachers with a vision. The pupils are calm, happy, reflective and eager for knowledge.”
Excerpt from report on ITV News
“You won’t find any smart phones her at Heritage School in Cambridge. The independent school doesn’t allow them at all and that’s the same rules for the older pupils as it is for the very youngest. It’s a view shared by a growing number of schools, and pupils here seem supportive”
“It enables you to be more attentive in class and also at break time you can interact with your peers without a screen getting in the way.”
“It increased focus and the community in school.”
“It is really helpful. We have real social interactions. It’s just great.”
Excerpt from The Daily Express
“[Heritage’s] strong values are borne out by impeccable results: last year, Heritage achieved the second-best GCSE results in Cambridge, a city overrun with high-performing schools. They also set the school apart from most, if not all, other schools in the UK, as well as from the general thrust of national educational policy, through which children are fed a staple diet of tech.”
“As I glimpse into a classroom at Heritage full of engaged, focused pupils, not a screen in sight, I think back to Fletcher’s words: “What we actually want as educators is direct access to the thoughts of the child. I want to know it’s not being manipulated by AI or ChatGBT or cut and paste. So just write it in an exercise book. It’s so clean. It’s so pure. Why would we not want that?”
Mr Fletcher’s Letter to The Times, published 2025
Sir,
I share Niall Ferguson’s concern about the catastrophic effect of AI upon cognitive development. Founding in 2007 the UK’s only screen free school, we have established precisely what he calls for: an oasis (or, as he calls it, a “cloister”) from which devices are excluded, where learning is centred around books, handwriting, discussion and real world activities and relationships. Our academic outcomes prove that it works (74 per cent of GCSEs graded 9-7), and we see very low incidence of mental health issues. My question is: where is Ferguson going to find university students “capable of coping with the discipline of the cloister” if schools are habituating them to screen-dependence? If we are to avoid the new Dark Age of which Ferguson warns, we urgently need a “screen-free schools” movement to complement the “smartphone-free childhood” one.
Jason Fletcher
Headmaster, Heritage School Cambridge