To have a word with the school about their blatent Apple product advertising?

[D0oinMeCleanin]

Dd1 has just shown me her parents week form. I can choose from a variety of groups to participate in with dd1, including a "Workshop showing how ipads can be used to enhance learning at home across the whole curriculum"

Really Just ipad? A Google Nexus cannot do the same thing then? Or a Tesco Hudl? Or any number of more reasonably affordable or superior Android tablets?

Almost every note sent home regarding work they can do on their tablets or giving them permission to bring their tablets into school specifically mentions ipads, not generic tablet computers. I've even had letters telling me that dd1 is allowed to bring her Macbook or ipad to school for the day

If they are shown apps at school, these are sometimes Apple Apps and no Android alternative is mentioned, despite the fact that I have always found a corresponding App in the Play Store after calming down a very upset dd1.

We manage this quite well. We can afford for the children to have their own tech, but I do think that the importance this school place on children having their own tech, Apple branded tech in particular, is starting to go a bit far now and cannot be easy for parents who cannot afford the latest ipad or macbook and might not realise that their is very little an ipad can do that a Hudl cannot.

[CrohnicallyFarting]

They could teach both- if the school had access to android devices to show them. I presume there is a good (probably financial) reason why they don't. Even if they can get android devices at a cheap rate like apple, it makes sense to buy eg a class set of one kind than half of each. As for telling the android owning children that they could search for something similar, I expect they already know that they could. And adding extra 'if you have an android you could...' would get tiresome very quickly. If they had to add extra bits to cover every possible home scenario so as not to offend anyone, the school would never get any actual teaching done! 'now everyone, when you get home tonight, or tomorrow, or after you've visited your Dad's at the weekend, don't forget to tell, or sign to, your parents, or older brother, or aunt and uncle, or grandma, or foster carer...'

At least the teacher is saying 'if you wanted to...' and not setting an official homework requiring iPad ownership.

If someone didn't have a tablet at all, they could always have a quiet word with the teacher. My old school used to let pupils go in the computer suite at dinner times (this was mid 90s so computer ownership was less common, and very few had Internet access at home). It might be possible for the school to arrange iPad access at lunch or after school.

I suggest that you point out to your daughter just how lucky she is to have iPad access in school, and access to a tablet outside school.

[Sallyingforth]

This is the result of clever marketing by Apple. They sell iPads at knock-down prices to schools, so that parents are persuaded to buy them for their kids at the full price. There is a huge profit margin on Apple products - they cost no more to make than equivalent quality Android computers - so they soon get more than their money back.
Parents should stand up to this and refuse to buy unnecessarily expensive products.

[maddy68]

Obviously it is marketing but schools have limited funds. Plus it is really difficult managing lots of different forms of device. Much easier to pick one form. In this case apple.
They are ally useful in schools for all sorts of things

[afterthought]

We don't have any ipads in my school. Each department has an android device but I've never used it.

I often tell my children (secondary) about apps / ibooks I have found that might help them. I have no reason to advertise Apple - it is just the tablet I happen to own and consequently stumble upon useful things.

I wonder if the school has got a lot of discount Apple products (I know they do a lot of education stuff) and part of the agreement is exclusivity.

[Somersaults]

As far as I know we have no exclusivity deal with Apple and we have a lot of iPads at our school.

[ThistledownAndCobweb]

Apple have developed lots of educational tools and mechanisms like apple configurator to help manage them.
They also have ADE trainers and many LEAs support this.

I looked into lots of different tablet types before I made a choice in school, it just so happened that iPads were the best fit.

At home we have a mixture of android and apple.

[D0oinMeCleanin]

HadABadDay, the assumption seems to be that all the children at least have access to a tablet or smart phone at home. The few who do not, or are not allowed to bring them into school are allowed to use the class ipads over breaktimes and on free time.

To be fair, most of them do seem to have their own Apple products. I did not believe dd1 when she told me all of her friends would be taking their iphones to the school disco to take photos, but reluctantly loaned her my smart phone for the evening. She used it to take photos of all of her friends holding their iPhones