ABOUT SCREENFREE
About screenfree
Australian, founder-led, and built for how schools actually run.
I've spent 17 years as a recruiter. Strip everything away and the job is people talking to each other and working out whether they trust what they're hearing. It's a good industry for noticing how rooms work.
And somewhere in those years, the rooms changed. Phones came in and quietly took ground that used to belong to conversation. Nobody decided it. It just happened, one glance at a time, until it was normal to be halfway somewhere else.
I've got a phone and I'm no better with it than anyone. But a phone in your pocket is a standing offer to be somewhere more interesting than where you are, and most of us take it. Adults at least had a run-up. We learned to sit through a slow conversation before the exit door existed.
That's the part I keep coming back to. Boredom, awkwardness, a lesson that drags, a conversation you'd rather not be having. That's not wasted time. That's the gym. Take away the thing to hide behind and it's uncomfortable for a fortnight, and then it isn't.
I'm a father of three with two of them in secondary school, so this isn't theory for me. I watch it at the dinner table. I hear the same thing from every school I speak to. Teaching is hard enough without competing with a device in every pocket.
Kids are learning both at once, and the interruption is winning.
FOUNDER-LED
Matt Worrall
screenfree Australia
As seen on Sunrise: screenfree pouches featured in a national segment on school phone bans."
That's what screenfree is for. Not banning phones. Protecting the hours where being present still has a chance..
WHAT I'M ACTUALLY SELLING
What I'm actually selling
So that's the why. Here's the part I actually sell, which is fabric and a magnet, and I'm aware of how that sounds.
Because nobody buys a pouch. Schools buy what the room looks like once the phone is out of the conversation, and that lands differently for everyone in it.
For students
The pouch is theirs. Their phone, in their pocket, in their care all day. No confiscation, no tray at the front office, no standoff. The decision has been made once, by the pouch, so it stops being a negotiation forty times a day. Most students, once the arguing stops, quietly find the day easier.
For teachers
The policy moves off their shoulders and onto the pouch. No more asking twice, no more being the phone police in period three and the soft touch in period five. The rule holds the same way in every room, which is the part no policy document has ever managed on its own.
For parents
The phone is still with their child. Reachable through the front office if something happens, out of the classroom the rest of the time. Most parents aren't against the school on this. They're relieved someone finally drew the line for them.
That's the job. Not managing phones. Giving the day back to the people in it.
GETTING STARTED
A practical place to start
One-time purchase, no subscription, no lock-in. Most schools start with a sample pack: two pouches and a magnet, enough to run the seal-and-call test and decide before committing to anything.
The honest measure is not how students react in week one. It is the teacher who stops having the same conversation forty times a day.
"
Comparing pouch providers? See how screenfree compares with Yondr.
Matt Worrall
Founder, screenfree
matt@screenfree.au
FOUNDER ACCOUNTABILITY
How I work with schools
The person you speak to before ordering is the same person accountable for the rollout afterwards.
Direct Australian support
No annual fees
No distributors
No long-term lock-in
screenfree is one person, and I've decided that's a feature.
screenfree is founder-led. The person you speak to before ordering is the same person accountable for the rollout afterwards.
There are no distributors, franchise networks or overseas program managers between your school and the person responsible for it. I work with schools directly to choose the right pouch, test samples, plan the unlocking setup, and scale from a small trial to a year level or the whole school.
It is a one-time purchase, not a subscription or a managed program. No annual fees, no long-term lock-in. Pouches can carry your school crest, colours and an ID card slot.