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Malia Obama's Harvard boyfriend revealed to be British student who was head boy at prestigious UK boarding school

Malia Obama's boyfriend has been revealed to be a former British public schoolboy who met the former first daughter at Harvard University.

Rory Farquharson, a former head boy at the prestigious Rugby School, was linked to Barack Obama's eldest daughter after footage emerged appearing to show them kissing during the Harvard v Yale American football game.

Miss Obama started at the Ivy League university this Autumn, following in the footsteps of her parents, who both attended Harvard Law.

A mobile phone detox policy at Brighton College has led to many pupils rediscovering the lost art of playing board games

Leah Hamblett, Deputy Headmistress at Brighton College explains the impact following the announcement that the school planned to ban mobile phone usage for children aged up to Year 9, with older pupils told they would undergo detox days through the week.

Since the detox announcement – which, let’s not kid anyone here, did come as a bit of a shock to pupils – a number of schools have followed suit and it seems like every week the national newspapers report on the corrosive effects of constant phone use by children. However, there are signs that even children themselves are starting to realise how damaging over-use can be.

The Times reported in October that a study of 5,000 pupils undertaken by Digital Awareness UK and the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC) showed that nearly two thirds of young people in schools would not mind if social media had never been invented whilst seven in ten had put themselves through digital detoxes.

Research shows that free play gives children many valuable benefits, including the development of physical, emotional, social and cognitive skills. We, as adults, instinctively know this but children do not have the life experience to understand how damaging it can be to inhabit a digital world too much in a single day.

“It’s been a few months now since we introduced our digital detoxes and tried to emphasise the importance of games and activities in free time. So, what do our pupils think of it now they have had time to get used to the new regime? I spoke to a few of our pupils and what they had to say reminded me how much children actually appreciate clear boundaries on this – and are even grateful for them.”