AIBU to be angry about primary school iPads without parent consultation?

Just a microcosm of the real world where they throw "AI" at everything and see costs rise and productivity plummet.

I mean if education is to prepare our children for the future world, sounds like they have it spot on.

I am with you OP.
I would visit some other schools to see if there’s another locally I feel more comfortable with.
I feel you lose your child as soon as they have their own screen, if I had my time again I’d enforce far stricter limits at a younger age.

That’s interesting- I have noticed this in myself but thought it to be just me.

I agree it will just create a generation of adults that cant think for themselves, cant write and have no sustained attention span

There is a documented link between actual physical handwriting with a pen/pencil and better retention and understanding of learning for young children. The same task completed on a laptop or tablet will not develop skills and memory in the same way.

Occasional use for research/maths games etc - fine.
Ongoing daily use as a replacement for actual face to face talk or writing in books - detrimental to children’s outcomes.

The Neuroscience Behind Writing: Handwriting vs. Typing—Who Wins the Battle?

People were saying that in the 80s to kids that apparently watched too much TV. I had an aunt constantly reminding I would get square eyes. We all turned out ok. Every time there is a period of technological invention people treat it with suspicion and caution and often contempt. Even calculators when they were allowed in the classroom. Moderation is obviously the key to most things like screens.

I think you should formally complain, use the complaints procedure. If you as it seems have strong reasons to believe that data protection is not being taken seriously, then report to the Information Commissioner.

You are an adult. You have embraced tech as an adult with a developed brain… they are small children. Tech is shown to affect the brain, eyes, reward systems etc.

Playing learning games that are the entryway into tech addiction, crap attention spans, increased dopamine and reward seeking and strained eyes.

Completely not being unreasonable. My children are in secondary school (junior school) and the only tech they use is desktop computers - which they only use in Computing & Study Hall. There's absolutely no need for small children to be using ipads in school.

Slightly missing lthe point here but why is it always ipads and not vastly cheaper Android tablets? The cost must be astonishingly high, paticularly when given to children. And as a former teacher no, I don't think this is a good idea for this age group. Let kids learn the basics in the traditional way, then at secondary age add in a portion of computer based work.

Tech companies are clearly making a fortune out of the British education system. The academy system was designed to help businessmen make money out of children.

When teachers are talking about 'no money for glue pens' it must be a kick in the teeth when the school budget suddenly finds tens of thousands of pounds to give 6yr olds ipads.

Not been able to read your whole post but just to say same thing happened at my dcs schools 5 years ago. No consultation with students or parents. No idea if teachers were consulted. Fast forward 5 years and the MAT has gone bust £10m black hole- partly attributed to the iPads- bailouts from DFE and all iPads have been handed back. My kids, and most others I believe, HATED them. They had to remember to charge them every night and teachers hated having to sanction kids as they'd inevitably forgot to do it. They were heavy to carry and a complete distraction in lesson time as kids were always messing on them. Most ed tech is rubbish , screen time has been proven to be bad for children's eyes and brain development and it also means that if they have all that screen time at school they technically can't have it at home which is unfair. I would absolutely fight this.

The only school (a secondary) that rolled out individual iPads several years ago quietly dropped them last year. They were pointless and kids easily found ways to mess about and do exactly what they liked. It would be a hard no for me at primary level.

People are obsessed with hating technology. I find it odd. Embracing technology will help prepare children for a digitally driven workforce. My own career being self employed now heavily uses AI. I'm mid 40s.and if I didn't embrace it, I would risk being unemployed in what I do.

I'm sure it will be in moderation and children will still be using a wide range of skills.that don't involve tablets.

I was at school in the 1970s and 1980s. I had a shonky ZX Spectrum at home that I would occasionally programme and played games on. I don't think I saw a computer at school until 6th form.

I didn't have any problem using them in the workplace. They're designed to be easy to use and have got more so over the years!

I feel quite worried for these children being taught with screens and not getting the chance to learn the skills they really need in life. Very against ipads and other screens in school beyond things like IT lessons and occasional use for things like maths games. That's pretty much how it's done in DS's primary school, they get some lessons on things like touch typing and coding (and later on, power point) but this is only occasional, the rest of the time they are using textbooks and exercise books or other non screen learning.

No, most schools absolutely have not had individual Ipads for the majority of learning from Y3.

What is wrong with you? Most schools rolled out iPads years ago so your kids are in fact, behind. It’s not like they can watch porn on them. Get a grip

I’d be very upset about this. If you look into all the big tech company CEOs, none of them let their kids use this tech and send them to screen free schools, because they don’t want their own children to be zombies

1. Are iPads really needed every day for children this young?
2. What is the educational benefit?
3. How much screen time are they actually getting?
4. What happens to the children’s work and information once it’s uploaded?
5. Where is the children's data going and being stored in the world?
6. Who can see what they’re doing?
7. What checks were done before this was introduced?
8. Can parents opt out or have an alternative? (We have been told NO).

This sounds like the answers have already been answered in your mind and they’re all negative.

The real question is; why do you think it’s a problem if the school uses iPads?

No need to hide behind ‘reasonable’ questions when what you want to do is let-loose about why it’s a problem. Just make sure your reasoning is factually sound and not simply a bluster of hypothetical what-ifs and unsubstantiated hear-say.

My son (now at uni) said the same. Even when he was trying to concentrate in the class, out of the corner of his eye, he could see kids looking at memes, playing games etc. And they all knew how to hack them. His teachers used to ask him to sort things out for them as he was the ‘tech’ kid. Kids have atrocious concentration spans these days and have all these things at home plus electronic whiteboards etc in the classroom. No need for any more!

What are they using them for? I work in a primary, most classes in KS2 have a class set of chromebooks. We don't use them all the time though. We use them for TT rockstars and spelling shed mostly. Accelerated reader tests when they've read a book. Coding for ICT lessons. Then very occasionally if we've for example done DT, they might film a 30 sec video showing what they've done and how and upload it to tapestry. Again occasionally, a bit of research. I would say they spend less than 30 mins a day on them on average. Given that the majority of pupils seem to spend 80% of their out of school free time on screens, I'm not sure why 1/12 of their school day, beneficial for learning, is an issue.

You are not being unreasonable to want to know exactly what they are being used for and how much screen time they are having etc. I think it really depends on the answers to those questions as to whether this is something to worry about or not.

Personally, I am against too much tech in childhood/ adolescence. I teach resitters in a college and it is utterly shocking what I see on a daily basis. I see teenagers with handwriting that looks like it belongs to a 5 year old. I see people who never use any form of punctuation and randomly mix up upper and lower case letters. I see people who can’t sit and listen to a short extract being read out to them without losing interest. It takes them 15 minutes to start a simple task and they get bored after a few minutes. Yes, these are resitters but this should absolutely not be happening. They sit and doom scroll on their phones in the corridors, never even looking up to talk to their peers or a teacher when greeted.

People say kids need to learn tech for the sake of being employable in the future. Let me tell you, there’s no way I’d want to employ some of these kids. They don’t have basic life skills because tech has had such a negative impact on them. I seriously limit my own kids’ use of tech as a result. I think this is a national crisis, and many parents have no idea how they damaging their kids in not having strict enough limits.

In the 90s we had one computer per class and barely spent any time on it, just the occasional chance to play Granny's Garden or do some word processing practice. This is very very different to using ipads daily.