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.

Still doesn't sound very "voluntary" to me. I don't know how TF they expect families on pupil premium to cover huge unexpected repair bills when insurance is mandatory for better off families. It seems a bit unethical, a whiff of blackmail. Breakages can happen to the most careful of children. We had a phone broken because a lad in DD's class picked up her bag and chucked it across the room. In practice maybe they would cover the repair cost "as a gesture of goodwill", but you shouldn't need to have the worry.

Does the £6.50 include the insurance, stylus and case do you think? It should do if the alternative is zero cost but having to cover your own repairs.

My inkling, based on no expertise, is trying to agree a reduced amount. Agree to the £6.50, assuming that includes at least the insurance, and you can get the other bits separately if necessary, or suggest a smaller amount of you need to. Get in the system as a family paying a "contribution". If the monthly payment becomes difficult to afford in future, don't be shy to go back to them and ask for a reduction again. This iPad should not be negatively impacting your children's lives.

Suggesting you make yourselves liable for potentially hundreds of pounds of repair bills is likely a thoughtless, made up suggestion by someone who has never lived on a lower budget. Perhaps to them it's just a financial negotiation and they haven't thought about what it would actually mean for a family on a limited budget to sudden face a £400 repair bill.

You should probably check the definition of damage in this context. Im assuming accidental physical damage ? Also query if the school does not have insurance for these items? Particularly as you would be unable to use your personal insurance , because the item doesnt belong to you. Whereas if it was yours...you would be covered by standard household insurance at no extra cost.
If they are asking you to assume liability for an item they own and have insured that is going to violating the terms of their insurance ..and I wish i could remember why its not legal, but its not.

They need a school-owned iPad for safeguarding if they are going to use iPads at all, because then the school can lock it down, install virus protection, add software they don’t have domestic use licences for, and insist that they check it and potentially impound it at will.
If everyone brought their own from home it would be a huge liability wrt theft, damage, inappropriate content brought from home and accessed in school/broadcast out of the school, students refusing to let teachers see the screen on demand etc etc.

School iPads should be insured by school. Do not sign anything saying you would be liable for school equipment.

I would say you are happy for her to use a school iPad that you do not fund but you won’t accept liability for damage as it is a school device and therefore should be insured on the schools insurance.

I have never heard of a school expecting a child to use an iPad and asking parents to pay for it (but never own it) and then saying well you can just be liable for its damage then as if that’s some kind of great and kind alternative.

Yes, this.
It's totally unacceptable.