At the recent National Day Rally (NDR) 2025, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong reminded parents about the impact of screen time, urging families to balance protecting our little ones and preparing them for the future. He said, “For infants and toddlers, the science is clear: no screen time at all. Even for pre-schoolers, we should be mindful and limit their screen time… encourage them to spend more time outdoors – playing, making friends and being active.”
At Whistle Woods Schoolhouse, we cannot agree more! We are proud to be a 100% tech-free preschool. But this is not a new badge we are putting on in response to the Prime Minister’s speech, nor is it a quick attempt to align with the ‘Grow Well SG Initiative’ that was rolled out earlier this year. Our stance is rooted in a much longer tradition. For over a century, Waldorf schools worldwide have embraced low-tech early education. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, they even became an oxymoronic choice that many Silicon Valley parents embraced. Tech executives from Google and Apple were sending their children there to nurture creativity through hands-on, real-world experiences.
The founder, Rudolf Steiner, lived long before phones and computers were invented, yet his insights remain relevant. In 1909, he wrote, “The young child, until the change of teeth, is wholly an imitative being.” Since screens do not offer meaningful activity to imitate (tapping or swiping has no depth), Waldorf teachers keep young children surrounded by authentic, human-centred experiences instead. And in 1924, he wrote, “In education we must first bring the child into touch with the world through the life of feeling and will, before demanding judgment from the intellect.” Instead of experiencing the world through pixels and code, Steiner emphasised the importance of direct sensory contact with real materials, people, and nature.
We acknowledge that children do not spend 24 hours a day in preschool and are open to many other influences in life. Even so, the time they do spend, typically 4 to 8 hours each day, can make a real difference. Going tech-free in the early years is not about resisting the future. It is about giving children the right experiences at the right time, allowing them to develop the inner strength, imagination, and grounding needed to use technology thoughtfully rather than be dominated by it. At Whistle Woods Schoolhouse, we believe in letting young children learn and grow, through human connection and time-honoured methods of discovery.
We would love to share more about our philosophy with you on an experiential school tour. Enquire with us to arrange one.
Warmly,
Eiling