Worried about your child's screen time? What to do this week, and how in-person robotics and coding turn scrolling into something they built.
By Robocode. For parents, 26 September 2026, 5 min read
You are not imagining it. The hours add up, the mood dips when the tablet goes away, and at the end of an afternoon there is nothing to show for it. Most parents who come to a Free Tech Assessment say some version of the same thing: I do not want to ban screens, I want the time to count for something.
Screen time is the wrong measure
Hours are easy to count, so hours are what everyone argues about. The UK's Chief Medical Officers looked at the research in 2019 and did not set a safe number, because the evidence does not support one. What they did say was practical: keep screens out of the bedroom at night, off the table at mealtimes, and take breaks to move.
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health took the same view and gave families four questions to ask instead. Is screen time in your house controlled? Does it get in the way of what your family wants to do? Does it interfere with sleep? Can you control snacking while they use a screen? If the honest answers are yes, no, no and yes, the number of hours matters much less.
So the useful question is not how long, it is what for. An hour spent watching other people play a game and an hour spent building one are both screen time. They are not the same hour.
Consuming and creating are different things
A child watching videos is being handed something. A child writing the code that makes a robot turn left is making something, and when it turns right instead, they have a problem to solve. That is the difference Robocode is built around: from playing games to building them.
In our Robotics classes roughly eighty percent of the session is hands-on: wiring, mechanics, building, testing. The laptop is a tool on the bench next to the screwdriver. In Game Development, Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Security the work is at a workstation, but a Mentor is in the room the whole time and the work is theirs. Nobody leaves having watched something. They leave having made something.
- A robot that drives, which they built and programmed themselves.
- A game other people can play.
- A part designed on a screen and printed in the room.
- For the older ones, a qualification that counts.
In a room, with other children, with a Mentor
The second difference is the room. Every Robocode class is in person, never online, in a Studio Lab with four to eight children per Mentor and the same Mentor every week. That matters more than it sounds.
Online courses ask a child to sit alone at home, on the very device the worry is about, with nobody to notice when they are stuck. In a Studio Lab a child gets unstuck by a person, shows the robot to the child next to them, and comes back the following week to the same faces. For many families that weekly hour becomes the anchor of the week, and it is an hour that is not on the sofa.
Several of our families first came because their child is autistic or has other needs and finds noisy clubs hard. Small groups, one Mentor, a predictable rhythm and no peer grading suit them. There is a calmer route in for SEND families, and the Free Tech Assessment is the first step of it.
The best lesson of the week is usually a robot doing the wrong thing. Let them find out why.
What it can lead to
Younger children, from six, join a rolling programme with a fresh project each month. Older ones work through a sequence of courses. Along the way they can sit the BCS Level 1 Robotics Award and BCS Level 2 Thinking as a Coder, both on the Ofqual register and each equivalent to a GCSE, and we run the full AQA GCSE Computer Science at our own JCQ registered exam centre. A ten year old has sat it with us. An eleven year old achieved a grade 7. More than thirty Robocoders have now taken the exam.
None of them were selected in. Every one started in an ordinary weekly session, and a good number started because a parent was worried about screen time.
Five things to try this week
- Agree the screen-free times as a family and write them down: mealtimes, the hour before bed, and the bedroom overnight. A rule everyone can see is easier to keep than a rule one parent has to enforce.
- Move the screen into a shared room. What is done in the kitchen is done differently from what is done behind a closed door.
- Swap one hour of watching for one hour of making. A paper circuit, a cardboard build, a first game in Scratch, anything that ends with a thing.
- Change the question from how long were you on that to what did you make. It changes what they reach for.
- Come and see a Studio Lab. A Free Tech Assessment is 30, 45 or 90 minutes, depending on the centre, with a Mentor, in person, with no card details and no commitment. Most children are building within ten minutes of arriving.
If the wider picture worries you too, the law on under-16s and social media is changing. We have written a plain guide for parents to enrichment, the social media ban and what it means for your family.
What it costs, and how to start
Robotics and Game Development are £125 a month + £40 joining fee for one child, and each seat costs less as siblings join. The specialist pathways are £150 a month + £40 joining fee. We are an Ofsted registered childcare setting, so many families pay through Tax-Free Childcare or claim back through Universal Credit. Eligibility depends on your circumstances, and you claim it back yourself.
The first step is always the same: book a Free Tech Assessment at your nearest centre, meet the Mentor, and watch your child make something. If it is not a fit, you have lost 30, 45 or 90 minutes, depending on the centre, and gained an afternoon out.
Book a Free Tech Assessment
30, 45 or 90 minutes, depending on the centre, in person, with a Mentor. No card details until it is a fit.
Find your nearest centre