Children spending too long on maths app TT Rockstars, MP warns

Concerns have been raised with the government about the amount of time primary school children are spending on a popular app designed to make learning times tables fun. TT Rockstars, which allows pupils to compete with classmates for virtual coins and rock-star themed characters and outfits, is widely used by schools for maths homework. Labour MP Emily Darlington told BBC News that the app and others like it could be harming children's development because it rewards them for "length of time rather than quality of time spent online". She raised the concerns on Tuesday at the Commons Science Committee, which is investigating the impact of screen time and digital devices on children's brain development. The Milton Keynes Central MP said that while education technology, or EdTech, can have a place in the classroom, "when gamification is used, children spend hours online to 'earn' the latest outfit". "Parents are concerned that this causes conflict on time spent on devices and the pressure to perform against classmates," she added, saying this could deter children from taking part in real-life rather than screen-based activities. Bruno Reddy, founder of Maths Circle, the firm behind TT Rockstars, said he shared concerns about screen time and was working with schools to bring in curfews and time limits. He said the company discourages long sessions, noting that every game in TT Rockstars is deliberately short and characters remind children to take regular breaks. "The rule of thumb we give schools is: three minutes, four or five times a week. In September, a typical child played on three days, for about six minutes each time," he said. Reddy, a former maths teacher who launched TT Rockstars in 2010, said that from 24 November every school would have a curfew and a daily time limit switched on, with leaderboards switched off as default. He said the app had been designed to "boost learning in the classroom: recognising progress, celebrating achievement and making learning enjoyable", adding that the company had deliberately avoided features designed to keep children playing, such as streaks, random rewards, chat messages, loot boxes or notifications. "There's no advertising and schools pay the same subscription however much their students play, so we have no commercial reason to want children on screen for longer," he said. Maths Circle says TT Rockstars and Numbots, a similar programme for addition and subtraction, are used in 17,000 schools and more than 100,000 households. At the committee, early years education minister Paul Waugh said: "Gamification isn't the way to learn. That's the propaganda they [EdTech companies] will give you but it is all about driving their screen time and their screen use. So it's profit driven." He said there were ways of making learning fun that did not involve competition with oneself or others, and that EdTech should support teachers rather than replace them. The government is drawing up guidelines for schools and parents on the amount of time five to 16-year-olds should spend on screens, amid growing calls for the use of EdTech in classrooms to be limited. Charlotte Ashton, co-founder of Generation Focus, which campaigns for smartphone-free schools, said: "Increasingly parents and teachers are saying no to Ed Tech because for the vast majority of digital 'learning tools' there's very little evidence they actually improve learning and growing evidence they can be harmful." She added that not all tech is bad, but until it is clear that new digital tools improve learning without harm or unintended consequences, her organisation supports schools in sticking to proven teaching methods.