The Grammar school and their flipping iPads!

[Mumwithagreenhouse]

I have one DD who will be going into year 7 in September. When we looked at the school, we knew they used iPads within the school but nothing else was mentioned about them.
Got an email yesterday requesting I set up a direct debit for £13pm! I had no idea this was a case of purchasing one for DD, I just wrongfully assumed they were just used in school.

It’s not that I disagree with the concept of parents buying them exactly, it’s just the fact that they do not allow them to use their own. DD has one of the slightly larger iPad Pros (only because I won it and had no use for it) and it would be of much better use for her school work than the one they’re asking us to purchase and it’s fully insured for theft, loss or accidental damage, but nope. I was given a firm no by the school, they won’t budge!

So I HAVE to pay £13 per month, with an additional £7pm for the mandatory insurance and £3pm for the mandatory case plus an extra £8pm for the optional stylus! So that’s a mandatory £23pm or £31pm if she gets the supposedly optional but quite clearly expected, stylus.. Also, the fact that the school gets Pupil Premium for DD (free school meals although DD has packed lunch but I always apply for it anyway so that the school still get the funds!) apparently is “irrelevant” and being a child entitled to Pupil Premium doesn’t give us any kind of discount on the iPad purchase or any leniency on the ‘no already-owned iPads’ rule.

Is this all normal now? Am I old fashioned to think this is a little bit ridiculous? Perhaps I’m just still annoyed about them demanding that we pay £20 per month for PE and the fact that they now require they all wear school-branded trousers! (No skirts permitted). No no! You MUST wear the £38 trousers with the school logo on…..! I’m a widowed lone parent now on a low income and this is going to f’ing bankrupt me.

Please be nice, it’s a very long time since I was at high school and this is all new to me! I’m happy to be told (politely) that I’m wrong.

That’s really shit! But it’s not permissible under English law and statutory guidance. The school is not allowed to require payment for anything to deliver the curriculum. Truly voluntary contributions only.

No, they won't do that, because you would still have admin access, their software installed on their devices, to which the student will have a user log in and the IT department an admin log in - no way would any self respecting network manager let an outside device on the network.

As for her “having to feel singled out”, ask them what they are doing to promote equality and diversity, and undo the grammar selectivity because this isn’t it.

Ask them why they think it’s ok for an 11 year old to feel singled out because of her parent’s income and the fact your husband died. That should shut them up. They should be mortified, honestly.

This is true, and why the OP can simply demand it free, and will get it.

Additionally, if the school were actually putting these fees through the accounts to lease an item of education equipment, that under tax law is subject to VAT at 20% which they should pay to the nice people at the HMRC, but its being written down as a voluntary contribution.

They seem to manage it for kids with Dyslexia at both my son and daughter’s bog standard state schools. There is a form to fill in. They aren’t slack.

At my last school in Melbourne, the government gave all secondary pupils a laptop but not the money for schools to maintain them. Many were trashed. The cost was ruinous.
Then a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy was instituted where ODs were brought in, linked into the school's system, including a surveillance/safeguarding system. It worked well. Families with welfare needs were supplied by the school.

Trashing of equipment disappeared.

Back to the OP's school. It looks like the school are covering costs and ensuring the machines are safeguarding-compliant. If their IT support is any good, they'll be able to adapt the OP's iPad to conform to their standards.

Oops. I see this has already been noted upthread.

Here is the guidance. The mentioned legislation doesnt apply directly to academies but they will be held to the statutory guidance (from which this is an excerpt) through their funding agreement with the DfE.

Well, there you have it OP, chapter and verse, they can't make you pay or refuse!

Sorry, picture under review - page 15 of this document:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5af99c8ae5274a25e78bbe30/Charging_for_school_activities.pdf

Tbh I think I would already be reporting this school to my local council for the trousers alone.

Also cannot believe you have to rent an iPad Case for £3 a month. Is that for the full period? They must be making a killing out of this.

Agree with others, absolutely refuse. This is a disgraceful way for a grammar school to operate.

The council won’t care. All grammars in England have academy status and are outside of local authority control. That’s one for the DfE.

Yes they’ve got around it by calling it a ‘voluntary contribution’ 🙄 which on that document, it says is permitted. Typical!

As I said above, they’ve got around it by calling it a voluntary contribution which as per that document, is permitted. But of course, no parent wants to be in the minority who don’t pay!

No they’ve made it quite clear that it’s completely prohibited to provide your own iPad!

I will do this, thank you! I’ve screenshotted yours and Covert’s posts for Monday, thanks again!

I would be "that parent" I couldn't justify that to myself, tough, that's a lot of money. I wouldn't pay it. That's craziness.

Fuck off you must be kidding?! Screw that!!!

I've worked in tech, and there isn't much discount on apple products but they will achieve a small one if they are bulk purchasing that many at once! They definitely would get a hefty discount for that many cases/pens/plugs at once. £8pm for nearly 4 years for an iPad case? Blatant profiting.

Also a single one might have a resale value if you went to CeX for example but in daily use it's actually completely worthless to resell by the school. They are outside of any extendable warranty after 5 years maximum.
I'd have to ask what the current resale for this years Year 10 children has been, just to see if they are in line or not.

But the comment from school about how your DD will be in the minority and pressuring you is absolute BS! They are going to be profiting from this in some way and once they get the snowball effect of parents refusing it'll hit them hard. So they are emotionally blackmailing you, and making it seem like a punishment by you rather than their lack of inclusivity.

What's the best thing about this school? Because I'd be reconsidering if it's somewhere I want to send my child if this is the message they are sending to kids: openly making the 'poorer' children a mockery to other parents (who will have succumbed to the pressure to pay!)

In Scotland iPads are provided to all secondary school pupils.

if they expect children to use them they provide them.

With how teenagers are about ‘stuff’ and brands it makes perfect sense that they’d want all the pupils to have the same iPad and case etc and that they’d be using them at home for homework.
I think I’d have questioned the details of it when I looked round though. On our first tour it was mentioned they needed a smartphone for all the homework apps, I queried that because mine didn’t have a smartphone and I wasn’t planning on buying them one. Thankfully the head changed before mine started and banned phones.
With the trousers I’d be relieved that hopefully there won’t be arse cheeks on display or arguments about buying trousers that break the rules “because everyone else is allowed them Muuum”

it sounds like this school are making it very difficult for children from low income families to access learning and - with the branded uniform- to afford to attend the school in the first place.

I would be writing to the head, governors and MP complaining about low income families being forced to find £30 a month/ £900 total for the LOAN of an iPad, and that the alternative (using a school one and hand it in at the end of the day) disadvantages those pupils because they can’t do their homework on the iPad like everyone else. Plus it stigmatises them as the poor kids who can’t afford an iPad

id also be flagging that they’ve got a very poor deal with the iPad supplier- not value for money and expensive for parents in a cost of living crisis.

re the uniform, I think the DfE have limited branded uniform items to 3 (4 if one is a tie?) - is your school adhering to that? If not I’d complain about that too.

Our child's school has a similar scheme. However, it is for a laptop with all programmes and subscriptions on it. It comes with a laptop bag too. We pay £14 a month which we pay during yrs 7, 8 and 9. At the end of Yr 9, the laptop is theirs to keep. Laptops are used in most lessons and for homework. Parents can also access a portal on it to book appointments and send emails to staff, if needed.

Additionally, all repairs are done by the sixth form computing students who have had intense repair training by the laptop manufacturer. A child takes their laptop to the computer repair workshop on site, fills out a form saying what the problem is and they are given a loan one while theirs are being sorted. If it cannot be repaired, they are given a new laptop at no extra charge. They are also given a new one if it is lost or stolen (one time only)

Students who are on free school meals are given the laptop with no direct debit set up. The laptops are identical to those that are paid for, so no one can tell any difference betweenwho has paid and who hasn't.

I do not mind paying out for this as other than the £14 a month, there is no other cost to me and my child gets the laptop at the end of the 3 years to keep. I wouldn't want to pay for a loan one like your school is doing. You should have been given all the information on the open evening like we were.

This. It is discrimination plain and simple otherwise. Also, schools are not allowed to charge for lessons which are part of the national curriculum, which PE is. So ignore that nonsense.

This is going to be some weird academy with all sorts of problems but focusing on shit like this.