Good morning.

morning, actually.

Hi, Maisw.

Hi Maisel.

Good morning.

What a lovely warning isn't useful. At the gates of St. Patrick's Morning. to their head teacher, Rachel Harper. They jostle their way into the modern bright

buildings that surround the shady playground.

The children here are getting used to visits from reporters.

The school has been on the news in Canada, the US, India, France, Spain

for a trailblazing initiative that taps into a heated global debate

where their smartphones are damaging young people. that taps into a heated global debate,

where their smartphones are damaging young people's mental health.

And the School's Initiative is now being copied in communities around Ireland

and in other countries. I'm Beth McLeod,

welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.

For this week's assignment, I've come to Greystones, the Irish town that made headlines a year ago when all eight of its primary schools

invited parents to sign a voluntary pact or code, not to buy their child a smartphone

before they move up to secondary school, which in Ireland is usually at age 12.

So yeah, we could see phones creeping in actually in a very small way with nine-year-olds and

ten-year-olds, you know, very small, but in a big way in 5th and 6th that they would be, you know, kind of 10, 11, 12th.

And I suppose with that came then, the children started going on what's-ups, you know, and we were as teachers dealing with kids being left out or kids being upset.

A recent major survey found that by the time they leave primary school, nearly three quarters of children in Ireland have their own

...