A group of schools, nurseries and colleges have issued parents with a list of screen time recommendations for children aged between 0 and 18 years old.

The letter, which was sent out to the parents of 11,000 children this week, said “young people need a largely screen-free childhood in which to grow up, with screens only used for controlled periods of time and for certain types of activities”.

It also encouraged parents and teachers to be “role models” by limiting their own use of smartphones and social media in front of children.

As part of the new guidelines, the coalition of schools in Southwark will also review the use of screens in classrooms, and said homework will only be set electronically “where there is a clear educational benefit”.

Consulting with child psychologists, as well as educational leaders, teaching staff came up with the following guidelines for how much screen time children of different ages should be having each day...

Here’s what they suggest as the maximum amount of screen time per day:

Birth to 18 months – 5 minutes

• Access to short supervised video calls to close family/support network.
• Avoid access to any other screen time especially in the hour directly before sleeping.

18 months to 2 years – up to 1 hour

• Access to up to one hour of age-appropriate TV per day and/or short supervised video calls to close family/support network.
• Avoid access to any other device including computer games, any phone or tablet.
• Avoid screen time in the hour directly before sleeping.

2 years to Reception – up to 2 hours

• Access to up to two hours of age-appropriate TV per day and/or short supervised video calls to close family/support network.
• Avoid access to computer games and any type of phone, tablet or social media.
• Avoid screen time in the hour directly before sleeping.

Reception to Year 2 – up to 2.5 hours

• Access to up to two hours of age-appropriate TV per day.
• Access to a tablet/laptop/PC for educational purposes for up to 30 minutes a day.
• Avoid access to computer games and any type of phone, tablet or social media.
• Avoid screen time in the hour directly before sleeping and no screens in the bedroom overnight.

Year 3 to Year 5 – up to 3 hours

• Access to up to two hours of age-appropriate TV show content per day or age appropriate computer games.
• Access to a tablet/laptop/PC for educational purposes for up to one hour a........
  

  © HuffPost