To be shocked at a school in dire financial straits is giving its staff new iPads ?

[WhateverHappenedToWinceyWillis]

Hopefully they are sponsored and have not come out of budget but even so it sits rather uneasily.

It is a very challenging school so maybe it is an attempt to boost morale and stil even more staff from leaving.

My ds's school uses iPads, he loves it! I'm fairly certain that they would have been heavily discounted, if not free. Apple gave me a discount just for being a TA!

Anything that streamlines paperwork (planning, evaluating etc) time has to help the children as it frees up more teacher time. There are apps that make so many otherwise long tasks much simpler and quicker.

at playing Angry Birds in PPA!

My nieces go to an Academy and all the children including the nursery have their own iPad. I would have thought that the money could be put to better use. My sister said that a conversation was overheard in the office where the staff were laughing at how much money the school has. Don't spend it all at once is what I would have felt like saying.

A few iPads is a drop in the ocean compared to the costs of running a school.

YABU. I am an accoutant at a college. We have to invest in IT for both the staff and students. Like it or not, kids will be using tablets to carry all their work material before too long.

We've just had to spend a fortune on a load of Macs for our graphic design students so they are as equipped as they can be when they go out and try to find work in their chosen field. Apple do offer discounts to educational establishments for their products though.

As other have said, this will have probably been funded by a specific award to invest in IT, otherwise it'll have come form a college funded capital budget which is separate to the revenue budgets that will have been allcoated. It's totally normal for teachers to spend up their budget towards the end of the year in the misguided attempt to avoid having it cut next year.

What sort of financial difficulties is the school in?

Wouldn't a few ipads and some actual laptops be better? I don't know much about ipads to make a disclaimer!

*accountant - thank God I'm not an English teacher :)

Cockwomble, in answer to your specific question. No. Not really.

I know the school is in dire financial straits as I have worked there and know they were laying of staff because the school is in a significant deficit .

I am not teacher bashing, I am a teacher .

I don't object at all to money being spent on ICT equipment , all staff have laptops which I understand , which is why I was surprised that the staff all now have iPads in addition to those laptops.

I think I pads are expensive im not sure why teachers need Ipads but i am a technophobe, Im sure the childrens budget wasnt cut for Ipads though perhaps they were donated or free through a 'scheme'

It is a deprived area. So I imagine there has been a grant so maybe I am being unreasonable. It just seems so odd that a school that has temporary classrooms, rooms in very poor condition and a lack of staff has money for iPads.

Of course in reality money is ring fenced and it is not that simple, but it seems odd.

I agree with you it seems mad and wasteful of money , still dont see why they need Ipads

Of course I didn't mean they were gifted to teachers, sorry I should have made that clear. They have been given to all teachers to use whilst they are teachers at the school. Just as they have laptops to use for teaching and planning.

iPads aren't any good for a school environment. They're eminently stealable, they're vulnerable to being dropped, they won't run all the software (particularly not websites running Flash, such as EducationCity) and they're horribly expensive.

But this is the same situation as when the MEPs in the European parliament all voted themselves a free iPad, and the same situation as the Westminster parliament 'trialling' iPads and the cost per machine being £225 per month. What's happened is that a tech-ignorant bozo has seen an iPad, gone "WOW, MONGO LOVE IPAD" and decided to create a pretend 'need' so that they can have one.