AIBU to be furious that our primary school trust pushed through iPads for Year 3/4 without engaging with parents?
Posting because I’m honestly so frustrated and I’d really appreciate some advice from other parents.
My child is at a Surrey school within Xavier Catholic Education Trust. The Trust has rolled out a 1:1 iPad scheme for Year 3 and Year 4 children: so we’re talking about 7, 8 and 9-year-olds, not teenagers.
The issue isn’t that I’m anti-technology. I’m really not. I understand schools use iPads and apps now. But this feels like a huge change to the way young children are being taught, and it seems to have been pushed through before parents were properly asked, informed or listened to. The Trust seems heavily involved with a Hong Kong-based/ international venture-capital backed company who appear to be developing their products based on our children's data. That's not necessarily suspect or wrong, but shouldn't we be entitled to explanations? Surely this cannot be right?
A large group of parents (around 40 across the three year groups) raised concerns. These weren’t just people moaning about screen time. Parents asked reasonable questions like:
- Are iPads really needed every day for children this young?
- What is the educational benefit?
- How much screen time are they actually getting?
- What happens to the children’s work and information once it’s uploaded?
- Where is the children's data going and being stored in the world?
- Who can see what they’re doing?
- What checks were done before this was introduced?
- Can parents opt out or have an alternative? (We have been told NO).
Instead of being properly engaged with, parents feel we’ve been fobbed off.
Requests for a proper meeting were declined. We’ve had generic reassurances and glossy-sounding explanations, but not clear answers to the actual questions being asked.
One of the things that really bothers me is that, as far as we’ve been told, there wasn’t a proper written risk assessment (a "Data Protection Impact Assessment") done before this was rolled out. Given this involves young children using iPads, school apps, online platforms, stored schoolwork and teacher monitoring, I find that hard to understand.
There is also apparently a system where teachers can monitor what pupils are doing on the iPads in real time. I’m not saying teachers shouldn’t supervise children — of course they should. But surely parents are entitled to know exactly how this works, what the limits are, and what safeguards are in place?
Another thing that feels uncomfortable is that staff from the Trust seem to have been involved in presenting alongside Goodnotes / EdTech projects connected with the sort of technology now being used in classrooms. Maybe that’s all perfectly above board, but if the Trust is that closely involved with promoting this kind of thing, shouldn’t they be extra careful to show parents that they’ve properly and independently checked whether it’s right for our children?
What’s also maddening is that this scheme was apparently still “in development” when introduced, and there didn’t seem to be solid evidence yet that it actually improves learning for children this young. Yet it has still been pushed ahead and expanded.
Parents haven’t been offered any meaningful alternative either. So in practice, it feels compulsory. You either go along with it or your child risks being the odd one out.
The tone from the Trust has really upset people too. Rather than treating parents as people with legitimate concerns about their children, the response has felt defensive and dismissive, almost as though we are being awkward for asking basic questions.
I just don’t think this is good enough.
This is about young children. It’s about how they learn, how much time they spend on screens, what happens to their schoolwork and personal information, and whether parents are being respected.
AIBU to think a school trust should not be rolling out something this significant without proper consultation, clear answers and proper checks first?
Has anyone else challenged an academy trust over something like this? Where would you go next — governors, the Trust board, the Diocese, ICO, Ofsted, MP?
I don’t want to be labelled “that parent”, but I also don’t think parents should be expected to just shut up and trust the system when the system won’t answer straightforward questions.
Would you escalate this formally? And where would you start?