Do your secondary school children have a laptop each at home?

[unlikelychump]

Ive got 3 children, the older two are y9 and y8. They use the family laptop for school work. Recently the amount of work they are doing has really ramped up and they are constantly waiting for each other to give them a turn. I'm thinking about getting them a laptop each to study on, but it is a big expense and I'm mindful of their privilege.

We know we will need to eventually, is now the time?

I would give them one. My son nabbed my laptop in y7 and I was always having to wait to use it. He got his own for Christmas this year so I could have mine back again.

My GC is nearly 11….got her first lap top to start high school with….Her DSis will get the same at 11

Yes our DCs all had laptops at High school and then MacBooks for Uni

Yes. We were lucky that we were able to give them old work ones though. Dd1's is probably the best computer in the house!

Yes, secondary schools here expect it and also for parents to fund an iPad to used in school.

Yes, unfortunately it's fairly essential these days. I'd get a second one for them sooner rather than later. We got a Chromebook for ours to do homework on, no point in getting anything fancier as he has other computers for gaming etc.

My daughter’s school is all iPad but we are getting her a laptop next year for s2. I think most high school children have one

“Mindful of their privilege” 🙄

You would inconvenience and make accessing education more difficult for your children because of you being “mindful of their privilege”. Kind of like playing Let’s Have Pretend Struggles Like Poor People? Actual poor people would think you’re being completely ridiculous I would suspect.

DD1 got 0ne for Yr10. DD2 is in Yr8 and manages with borrowing mine (or her sisters) at the moment.

My son has his own gaming PC, but when our youngest started high school he was going into year 10 and I don’t think it would be very easy for them to share (not impossible of course) they tend to do their homework at the same time as they like to get it out of the way after school. We bought our youngest his own laptop.

Yes, my DCs have a laptop as part of their core school equipment.

Yes. It’ll only get worse not better and you’re going to lose their good will quickly.

This is probably not a bad time of year to get something at a decent price

Mine have one each. Dd1 goes to uni in sept and needed a more powerful pc for the games she plays (definitely didn’t want a MacBook due to compatibility but did need an expensive - £1200 - PC). It was very much a more expensive than normal Christmas but will hopefully last her a few years.

Initially we went for chrome books - 2020 year 3 home school panic buy. They were functional but I prefer laptops, which they got year 9.

Our dc's school has a scheme in place where we pay a small direct debit each month for years 7, 8 and 9. They get a brand new laptop with all the packages they need for school, all security is controlled by school with alerts being flagged at school if any laptop has tried to access a forbidden site. Any issues are dealt with by the in school toshiba tech room which the 6th form computer students work in for wages folliwing training in pc repair by toshiba, and the laptops are either fixed or replaced with a new one. The dc have to take their laptops in every day and use it for most lessons as well as homework.
If students are eligible for free school meals, they get the laptop for nothing. All laptops remain property of students after the 3 years is up.

Yes they all had their own, MacBooks for when they went to uni at their request (not a cheeky request, just that it was what was suggested on their courses). Oldest one switched to an iPad and keyboard for their last year.
youngest is at secondary and has a laptop for homework.

Yes it’s a requirement for our school (Independant) they use them a lot, for the year 9 child it’s got to be in everyday

Mine have one between them but barely use it. They mostly do their homework at school tbh.

helpful thanks! It is starting to feel like time. They dont have to take them into school - use books. The next decision is whether to get them one each -the family laptop is old and must be constantly plugged in, so I am thinking so. DC3 will get his own in due course as he is very dyslexic and will use it 24/7 for secondary.

Any recommendations? Not apple, we are not apple people. and not a chromebook as I have one, and it is dying already - only a few years old and light use. I might go back to the laptop!!

How easy is it to lock down a laptop? We have profiles on this one, and they only use devices downstairs, but it will be harder to monitor actual usage - can we link them to the family link.

We had to buy DD a laptop during lockdown to do her schoolwork on as I needed the family laptop for working from home so she already had her own one when she started high school.

Yes. Mine have laptops or pc each (3 of them). All secondhand from ebay. And we have a family one, which is basically mine.

Yes they did. Just one of the cheaper ones from Argos.

What an excellent scheme - especially the 6th form service team !

Mine had one each when they were in secondary school. So much of their homework is online. Sharing wouldn't have worked.

My DS is an only but he is in Y11 and there is no way he could share his laptop with another DC. All the revision sites he uses are online and his school uses digital textbooks rather than paper. He is on it all the time now revision has really kicked in.

You could buy refurbished ones from somewhere like Backmarket. We've had an ipad from there and it was good as new.

It is such a good thing. Our eldest dropped his laptop on the way to school in yr7. They gave him a laptop to use for the day, then went back at hometime and his was as good as new. The students that work there gain practical experience and get a small wage for doing the training and any hours they work. The school is a computing excellence school. We pay less than £15 a month and nothing else and they have everythibg they need and the school does the monitoring. If the school decides to start using a new programme, it is installed on every laptop. I love that the students can also send emails to staff if they have any problems completing their homework. Parents can also send emails to senior staff if needed. Teachers respond during the next school day.