School moving to Chromebooks but what insurance is going to cover theft from the changing rooms?

[KnowlWay]

Finding it impossible to get a policy for DS’s Chromebook to be insured at school. The school are introducing their own lease to buy machines but we already have a higher spec so will use that but getting any insurance is proving to be impossible. AIBU to think they should just stick to quill and ink and save devices for homework?

@KnowlWay

Thanks for the insights. It’s £14 a month for 3 years and he’s already got a similar device. The changing rooms won’t get locked. A local school has had iPads for a while and I think they want to compete. Pupil Premium children get one without paying and financial support is offered for people who need it.

Hmm, your situation is not like ours then. In our case the school provides an insured device to all students - the only fee is $50 a year for insurance and repairs.

I'm not sure what I'd do in your case, but if you can't insure his own device in school then I don't think I'd let him take it in. I don't let my kids take their personal computers into school.

I'd go back to the school and ask what they suggest.

To all the people asking about pen & paper, for the last year, we have been told NOT to set any pen & paper tasks due to quarantine. If you do require hand-written work, you have to leave it for 3 days before you mark it, then 3 more days before you hand it back to them - or more likely, put them in a container for a kid to distribute.

All our kids have a school-issued laptop that we fund-raised to buy, and were distributed in October. When the January lockdown came, they were already used to using them for all lessons, so the transition to online learning was not too difficult.

Hopefully, we can return to a mixed approach in future, but it has made teaching in the current academic year less stressful because I know they all have access to the same sort of device. I know that they need to get used to writing exams by hand, but there are a number of kids for whom typing is their usual way of working, so they take their public exams using a special laptop with certain features disabled.

@Frogartist

I work at a leading Google school I am not criticising you personally, but why are we letting Google, a profit-making data mining business, have access to our children's work, results, abilities, location and thoughts?

If it's not Google it will be Apple or Microsoft...

DD takes a MacBook into school for graphics work, our ordinary house insurance covers it.

£14 a month for 3 years. That's £500 for a Chrome Book. When bought in bulk, that's outrageous.

I feel for you OP. I wouldn't pay for it either. Is this a state school in the UK? I think I'd be chatting to the local MP. And possibly the local paper.

I bought the DCs a Chromebook for home schooling. I am really disappointed with it. It doesn't work like either a laptop or a tablet and isn't anywhere near as good as either.

DD did better with a Bluetooth keyboard for her tablet. Not really the point of your thread, but I don't know why schools are pushing Chromebooks

Wow, can't believe you're all having to buy/lease one for your child.

We have a v small school so little in the budget, but with money that should be allocated to Computing anyway (because schools should be teaching this, and so need the devices to do so anyway) and with fundraising plus Pupil Premium money we have been able to provide one Chromebook for each child. These stay at school though and belong to the school.

We would never dream of charging parents.

If it's not Google it will be Apple or Microsoft...
Well, it wouldn't have to be! The UK is large enough to develop their own learning device/platform/system.

You use the schools! Every child in my daughters state secondary has one- parents buy the ones the school gets, not their own (even if they have better at home)

@Frogartist

I work at a leading Google school I am not criticising you personally, but why are we letting Google, a profit-making data mining business, have access to our children's work, results, abilities, location and thoughts?

I do kind of agree with this point.

But I think Google do actually have s better product that is easier to manage than the other offerings.

The other options would be prohibitively expensive (Apple), too complicated to manage (Microsoft), not really feesible to put together for a single school (open source)

@Velvian

I bought the DCs a Chromebook for home schooling. I am really disappointed with it. It doesn't work like either a laptop or a tablet and isn't anywhere near as good as either.

DD did better with a Bluetooth keyboard for her tablet. Not really the point of your thread, but I don't know why schools are pushing Chromebooks

They are easy to manage

@Frogartist

If it's not Google it will be Apple or Microsoft... Well, it wouldn't have to be! The UK is large enough to develop their own learning device/platform/system.

Manufactured by who? In what manufacturing plant? Our only decent chip manufacturer got sold off to softbank and is now being waved through by the government to be sold to nvidia. Any UK build device would just be a badged construction of the same components. Who is going to make the software if we avoid the US companies? Pearson?

Its just not economically viable to try and compete and match the ecosystem which exists on a Google / miscosoft / apple device. Hence why it doesn't exist - there is no valid business case to do it, it would cost more and offer less

Is your son at a state school? It would be easier to have appropriate connectivity if you use the standard school device, especially if the lease includes insurance and repairs.

Use the schools. Theirs is, in fact, superior to yours since it comes with an insurance package - yours doesn't.

Check your home insurance again or the insurance that may come with your bank account.

I agree that parents should not have to pay. As for make, people have preferences perhaps depending on experience, feel, unquantifiable things.

Honestly I'd use the school's ones then just log on at home to his school google account (easy enough to set up) and get at the schoolwork there.