You shouldn't need a printer for homeschooling

[KateBlush]

DC Y3. 30 plus pages of print outs sent out today via Google Classrooms. Nothing is interactive/ editable online. We don't have a printer and get through life the rest of the time perfectly well. IABU to expect school to try a bit harder to set more work that doesn't have to printed out/ transposed by parents to paper in order to complete?

There are lots of apps where you can annotate documents or pictures. Either screenshot the document or find an app to annotate directly on it. You can use a very cheap tablet like an amazon fire.

You need the app Snap Type.

Twinkl sheets are lazy 'teaching'.
This is why teachers are getting bad press. Some of us are planning, issuing, delivering and marking new learning which is differentiated to each learners ability. As we should be! It's hard, it's soul destroying but it's what the kids deserve.
Posting multiple Twinkl sheets isn't planned or differentiated. They are fine for consolidation but it's just a paper exercise otherwise.

You should not have to own a printer for your DCs to do online schooling. The school should be ensuring that everything is editable. My DCs school sent out a document stating that they will ensure that everything can be edited online and no printers will be required. All schools should be ensuring this, it isnt difficult to do.

I think sometimes the need to print is supposed to be an option if you have only one device, or a few kids, so that you can mass print everything in the morning and then the device can be free for others to use too.

YABU

Basic household equipment for at least 20 years. They are 30 pounds, cheaper than a family take-away and include a scanner! Maybe choose a laser at 70. They are now just disposable and deliver amazing quality.

Buy the basic devices and equipment needed for essential modern life. In the same way you expect everyone to have pens and paper for the last 100+ years, a TV for the last 40 years, a basic laptop and a shared printer and internet access are just things you should provide yourselves and can be assumed as available. If you didn't need one before, you do now.

Although reading off a screen can be very good, writing on paper often adds to the real learning for many.

For pdfs.... Convert to word docs free on 'I love pdf' website....

I require no printing for my lessons (primary) and neither if my kids (secondary) have to print either... Onenote or such for working online.

The school I work in will make up packs for any family who request it and will also deliver it by hand.
Please get in touch with your school if you are struggling at all, don’t make your lives harder than they need to be. I’m not for a minute saying all schools are going to be doing this but I’d guess that a lot are.
As for pages and pages of twinkl sheets I’m surprised! We are planning our usual week of working for the whole curriculum and then posting it all to dojo for those who are home learning. The children at school will be doing exactly the same work as the children at home although obviously those who are in will benefit from being taught by their class teacher in a quieter class than usual.

"Buy the basic devices and equipment needed for essential modern life."
Ive not got a spare 30 quid plus money for ink.
They're actually less essential now than 10 years ago.
The last things I printed were a boarding pass about 8 years ago and a cv a couple of years later.
Thats all done online now.
Ive not got a basic laptop either.
Im failing at modern life.
Excuse me for being poor.

I had to buy a printer last time. But I agree the one note idea sounds amazing!

And I never need a printer for anything else!

@Ginfordinner

What format are the worksheets? PDFs? Word?

If they are in word it is easy to copy and paste onto a blank word document which can then be edited. PDFs are more difficult unless your have Adovbe editing sofware.

For editing PDFs use pdf-xchange editor (free) instead of Adobe. You can even print from whatever format it was originally in into a pdf then edit and annotate it to your hearts content.

I too am going to have to buy a new printer after my rarely used inkjet finally dried up and died during the last round of home schooling.

@KateBlush

ONENOTE IS A TOTAL GAMECHANGER! Thank you a thousand times.

Also discovered that opting to print in Google Docs and then using 'draw' tool allows DC to mark up worksheets, if not add text - OneNote sorts that though.

You're welcome! Glad it's working for you.

I only discovered it due to working at home myself and now I'm a total convert. Apart from this purpose it's really great for going paperless generally and having order and organisation imposed on my stuff. I now have all my work notes and files available at home, work or on the bus via my phone. Just print everything to OneNote and set up notebooks and folders.

My DC’s school has made it clear nothing will require a printer. We have one anyway, had it years but it never got as much use as during the last lockdown!

You need to tell the teacher you don’t have one, I’m sure you won’t be the only one.

No child should be disadvantaged, the school should supply paper copies/ packs for those without a printer.
I'd have gladly volunteered to print some for other friends in this position. We have one from our business and always have paper and spare ink.
Schools don't have enough funding it's so sad.

@foothtairy

YABU

Basic household equipment for at least 20 years. They are 30 pounds, cheaper than a family take-away and include a scanner! Maybe choose a laser at 70. They are now just disposable and deliver amazing quality.

Buy the basic devices and equipment needed for essential modern life. In the same way you expect everyone to have pens and paper for the last 100+ years, a TV for the last 40 years, a basic laptop and a shared printer and internet access are just things you should provide yourselves and can be assumed as available. If you didn't need one before, you do now.

Although reading off a screen can be very good, writing on paper often adds to the real learning for many.

I think this is an incredibly old fashioned point of view. We haven't had a printer for years: costly to run, unreliable, bad for environment and out-moded - the world is fast becoming paperless and rightly so. I love we no longer need to print bills, postage labels, tickets, boarding passes, contracts to sign - and anything else I used my old printer for.

I can't think of a good reason to have a printer in the house and homeschooling shouldn't reverse that.

It's also terribly narrow minded - many households can't afford a printer, the paper and cartridges, or the devices to run them from. It's vital all children get access to a tablet/ computer for homeschooling and I hope the govt is good on its word on this. Imagine if a home printer had to be supplied to each child too.

Anyway, thanks to the great advice further up thread it's not going to be an issue.

We upload to seesaw, we can screenshot and fill in on there or do it on paper and upload a photo.

Last lockdown I can count on 1 hand how many times it would've been easier with a printer. We go through ink so quickly if we use one. I'm avoiding buying ink. I guess we're lucky with seesaw.

We also haven't used a printer for years! We have one but it got used so infrequently that every time I came to need it, the ink had dried up! Now we go to the library if something needs printing - sounds even more old fashioned but is cheaper when it's only about every 6 months!

I just tried the 'print to onenote' from a pdf - this will be brilliant. We also don't have a printer, but doing this will allow some stuff to be done onto the sheet. Assuming that we get issued any worksheets...

Once in OneNote you can switch to the pen and draw on them so you could use that to fill in answers. You can also do right click and make images searchable and then you can copy and past text etc if you want to add answers. You can do "send to one note" straight from emails too, if you didn't know, it's quite handy.

I love onenote, I use it for everything. It's like an online scrapbook or extra storage for my brain when it's full :)

Write the answers on paper and upload a photo of the work.

Dd in reception we've bought a printer can't see the bigdeal it was cheap