On Track: an intervention in primary school to support concentration in a digital age

Date/Time
Date(s) - 10/07/2025
1:30 pm - 3:30 pm

Led by Anne Marie Kristensen

University of Copenhagen

The workshop will take its starting point in the On Track intervention content. The intervention stretches over ten sessions and is carried by a narrative about the detective Sofus. He has to solve a mystery about who is closing down the internet. However, he will need the help of the participants to find clues, explore potential suspects and put the pieces together. Throughout the sessions and in this workshop, the participants will learn about and train executive functions such as inhibition, working memory, cognitive flexibility, self regulation and metacognition as part of the activities that will lead them towards the culprit.

The intervention also provides a way in to talking about the possibilities and challenges connected to digital and social media, including some of the mechanisms included to keep users engaged and to create habits of returning to their platforms regularly.

During the sessions the participants practise taking others’ perspectives and suggest strategies and support for the detective – and are encouraged to select elements to try out themselves, thereby training mentalisation skills.

Though some children struggle more than others with the skills in focus, addressing this ‘hidden curriculum’ is useful for all children, especially in this highly digitalised age.

Anne Marie Kristensen is a PhD student at the Department of Psychology at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. In her PhD project and field of research, she focuses on ways of supporting critical and creative thinking skills in digitally permeated age and schoolday. Following from here she has developed a teacher-led curriculum-based intervention called On Track to support executive function through work with strategies, scaffolding and training incorporated into the schoolday targeted at children aged 9-11 years.