School making Gmail accounts for 9 year olds

[SigningKidsUpOnline]

DD's class (year 5) has made Gmail accounts today. Fully functioning; no apparent blocks, etc.

Did your child's school do this? Is it the norm? It has struck some of us parents as not a decision the school should make without consulting parents.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

I've been in a few schools that have done this. Some schools do collaborative work using Google software. They just need them so they can save their projects in the cloud rather than on individual computers/tablets.

OK, maybe it's standard stuff, @MadCap. Seems to be opening all sorts of potential issues to me, and some of the other parents.

Yes, dd had her first email address (Gmail) set up as part of a school IT lesson.
I teach video and audio podcasting in an MFL to 10 and 11 year olds and they need a Gmail address for various things we do.

I made DS1 one when he was 10 and had to give a false age for it. He discovered that and corrected it and got locked out for being too young.

The minimum age for Gmail is 13, so the school must have lied to set up the accounts. I think they could have found a different solution to working collaboratively on documents or whatever it is they want to do.

Is it definitely "normal" gmail rather than the school emails being hosted by gmail? Like [email protected] but it's gmail behind it?

It wouldn't bother me unless they have lied about ages which isn't a good precedent to set at all.

What worries you and the other parents?

Sorry I didn't explain that very well! I'm just thinking how we have it at work

Are they using Google Classroom? It's fairly standard at secondary school and my DS was given a school Gmail account when he was 11.

I've got it set up so I see his emails on my phone, so it seems fine to me.

Every child in a lot of schools local to me has been given an Apple ID so they can use school issued iPads.

I'm sure my dd has a gmail account in y3. She is now y4 and much of their homework can be done in google docs or slides.

It's great for her as she has dyspraxia and doesn't have the greatest handwriting!

Most schools work through Google now so they need a Google account to access it.

And one of the IT skills taught in year 3 is emailing

Thanks all for responding.

@Namechangeforthiscancershit, it is as you say, with the school name in the email addresses. But it operates as a full Google account - you can contact anyone, it gives a YouTube account, and so on.

It sounds like this is quite standard. I'm surprised.
Thanks again.

What is the address?
My kids previous school set up all the kids with an gmail account from reception. It was used to send homework etc. But it was a [email protected] address, hosted by gmail. It gave them access to all the Google docs, and school sent e.g. pkease work on these sounds sheets through them.

To set up an personal gmail requires you to be 13years

Xposts.
I cant access the kids account now (weve left the school) but there were some pretty tough spam filters on it (as in we never got anything), and even contacting people not in the school address book was a phaff - it would never add to the address book, and sharing files outside the school network had layers of check boxes and confirmations- not impossible, but enough that the kids really wanted to do it ir realise they were doing something out of the ordinary.