Meet the Team
We are three mums of pre-teens who have realised that until all schools are smartphone-free, every child is exposed to the risks of unfiltered internet access and the relentless distraction of addictive-by-design technology.
Clare Fernyhough
Clare Fernyhough is a Psychologist and behaviour change expert. She co-founded Smartphone Free Childhood in February 2024 after a WhatsApp group she created went viral. Since then Clare has been leading the Smartphone Free Schools movement - supporting headteachers across the UK to remove smartphones from the school day. She's passionate about helping parents and schools work together more effectively, to reclaim childhood for this generation of children.
Charlotte Ashton
​Charlotte Ashton is a writer and journalist who spent the first ten years of her career as a reporter at BBC News. She now works as a radio documentary maker and is leading the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign in her home county of Warwickshire. As an experienced presenter she is committed to delivering parent and student education as a critical step on the journey to schools becoming genuinely smartphone free.
Miriam Turner
Miriam Turner is former CEO of Friends of the Earth in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. She has a proven track record of building highly effective teams, partnerships and ventures including Earthshot Finalist 2024 COAST4C where she remains on the Board. She brings strategic, campaigining and leadership strength, alongside experience from working with headteachers and the county council in Devon to make all the county’s schools smartphone free.
Our Ambassadors
We collaborate with school leaders and community voices who advocate for smartphone-free education.
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Tom Beveridge
Tom is Head of Alderbrook School in Solihull.​ He led an initiative which saw 49 schools write to parents urging them to delay buying smartphones for their children. He says, "a mandatory ban on smartphones in schools would help our children learn free from distraction, would help keep our children safe, and would allow children to be children for as long as possible. It would take pressures off school leaders and parents, enabling them to concentrate on allowing students to achieve and thrive
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Helen Bridges
Helen is Head of Kineton High School, Warwickshire. She introduced a simple-phones only policy on a rolling basis, starting with year 7 in September 2025. She says: "We shared our purpose and message with our new intake parents and I was genuinely surprised and delighted at the flurry of support from them. Notably, as the vast majority of our students travel on a school bus for some distance to get to school. Our revised policy has had a great impact on learning and students say they understand why it’s been introduced."
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Lucy Harrison
Lucy is Head of Archer Academy, North London. Originally, Archer Academy had a “no see no hear policy”. However, after noticing that students were struggling with the temptation of having a phone in their bag, the school banned all phones with a camera or internet functionality.
Andy Perry
Andy is Head of Myton School, Warwick where he is introducing a complete on-site ban of smartphones for years 7-11 in 2026. Andy says: "my long job description can largely be boiled down to two things: do everything in my power to keep children safe and to educate them. The evidence tells me that the presence of smartphones in school threatens both of those objectives. Therefore it’s rather simple really, I need to ban them from the site."