Hello and welcome to Classroom Digest! In this issue we look at today’s ‘Cyberbreak’ where parents and children are urged to ignore their devices for 24 hours; we ask you for your views on children walking to school; we ask what Junior Cycle reforms have delivered and The Secret Teacher comments on how students used to be more content in themselves.

Parents and children urged to take 24-hour ‘cyberbreak’ from 5pm today: Smartphone breaks ‘vital’ for mental health, says therapist, as survey shows two-thirds of students feel they spend too much time online.

Share your view: What is stopping children from walking to school? Walking to school is a healthy activity for children, so why do so few arrive to school each weekday by foot?

Children’s access to smartphones: ‘many sleep with them under their pillows’: Schools are increasingly enlisting parents in a battle to minimise children’s exposure to social media.

It took almost 20 years to deliver. So what have Junior Cycle reforms delivered? Junior Cert: Signs of positive shift in teaching and learning, but concerns voiced over student stress and workload

The Secret Teacher: Our students used to be more content in themselves: We were more available to them - and students thrive when teachers are fully present and able to go above and beyond.

Artificial intelligence use by Leaving Cert students in coursework could see them lose all marks: Teachers will need to monitor coursework to be able to verify it is candidates’ own work, says State Examinations Commission

A teacher on Budget 2024: ‘I am the squeezed middle. It helps, but not that much’: Aideen Clarke, an economics and business teacher, did a quick tot-up of how the Budget 2024 measures will affect her after watching it live with one of her classes.