to say "No way am I buying the Chromebook"??

[xaos]

DD is Y7 in an inde school, they're introducing chromebooks - compulsory. only device allowed in school. the chromebook will be restricted by their device policies so dd can't install anything, it's also going to be screen monitored by a product ALL THE TIME. killer? They are wanting us parents to buy them from the school at £650! No payment plans. Nothing. they can't even tell me how many hours they're using this device for in lessons per week.
my DD already has a macbook and iPad that she does her homework on and stuff when she's at home.

AIBU to not buy it?

When the cost of a laptop is more than the cost of a month’s rent and council tax they can jog on

I would also be annoyed, OP and probably push back. But ultimately they’re going to be able to insist aren’t they? If not this year, then next year they can just push the fees up to cover. So how worthwhile is it? What are your alternatives?

Go to the local press, i know a school that did this with ipads, much cheaper and with payment plans, with the bad publicity (some parents have more than 1 kid in school) they backed down and provided them for free. they are a nightmare, constantly needing repair due to being damaged by kids taking them to and from school, swinging bags round, throwing, falling, rain etc etc, good idea in theory but way off the mark in practice,

I wouldn't be impressed. My dc do pretty much all of their work on laptops, all of their text books are digital. We were given the choice of buy through x company or provide our own but it had to meet certain minimum standards and be a windows laptop. We bought our own, the school does put certain restrictions on them but they aren't monitored and they can still use them at home to watch netflix or whatever. Having said that it was still about 500quid to buy one that met the minimum standards so it wasn't cheap.

Surely if parents were responsible for the tech or providing tech insurance they'd be a lot more careful with them? It's pretty awful for parents to allow their kids to continually damage them. If your kid is accident prone then you buy a cover. Who the fuck let's rain on an ipad apart from people that are being handed them for free.

My childs school did this. They were about £375 outright with payment plans. They did advise us the plan is for all schools to have them in the U.K. Homework is completely through them and its all linked to the school so much easier. I wouldn't be impressed with the cost of your schools chromebooks, it seems excessive.

What nonsense. They use python and Photoshop and all that on school computers and we have those on her Mac. We can't use them on the Chromebook. So she's gonna need to use her Mac anyway at home, more as she goes up the school too.

I got one brand new for less than £200

YANBU. But if you think that’s bad….read on.

Ireland.

We were informed in May we had to buy a specific laptop/tablet device for DS starting secondary school in September that cost €700. It would be very secure and only school approved apps could be downloaded onto it. The device is like a folding laptop/tablet and has a touchscreen that you can write and draw on. This is the only secondary school in the town so no option to go to a different school. The Junior Cycle (equivalent to GCSE) had been revised and apparently this was a new requirement from this year. All classes were going to be teaching using the devices in the classroom.

There was no payment plan offered and the device had to be ordered online in June from a single supplier who supplies schools all over the country !! Also, told that students would no longer have to purchase text books or carry them to school as they would be downloaded to the devices. Luckily, (!) we could afford to pay for it but I know lots of families were struggling and didn’t buy one.

(In Ireland, it’s normal for parents to buy all school text books and writing materials and usually costs a couple of hundred euros per year.)

The laptop arrived late summer and it wouldn’t log into the school system. DS is pretty techy and he easily managed to bypass the log in and set it up how he wanted it. Their firewall was piss poor.

Several subject teachers are still using textbooks (which the school has supplied) but are required to be carried in daily along with the laptop. DS’s bag is incredibly heavy to the extent that I can’t carry it myself.

The whole thing is a bad joke. 😠

DD2's school did this with tablets a few years ago. It's a state school and they did offer payment plans but there was still a big outcry and they soon binned the idea.

It's very wasteful to ask people to buy another device when the software could just be used by existing devices.

We had this. State school, the price was just under £350 though. Payment plans offered. I pay just under a tenner a month for three years.

Why so expensive? My son's secondary school (sort of) requires you to have chromebooks, but the total cost was £250 (either pay upfront or in installments over 1-3 years).

Can believe parents are having an out cry and forcing school a to bin the idea, and then feeling all smug.
Don’t they realise that they are at risk of seriously putting their kids (and their kids school) behind?
Totally short sighted parents.
Our secondary school kids are at the beginning of this transition so it won’t always work smoothly hence some teachers still using text books and parents championing to stay firmly in 2016.

A) Chromebooks do not cost that much.
B) If it belongs to you, you can install what you like! School can’t dictate that.
C) Personally, I find Chromebooks a lacking and poor relation to other devices - MacBooks, some Microsoft products. I’d want Apple for that price.

It’s not when it’s unaffordable for some. It’s not inclusive and will leave some children behind.

my childrens school have some chromebooks that can be borrowed. You have to queue up for them, making you late for lessons, you sign them out and then have to return them and sign them back in. Each one has its quirks. They can’t take it home to do homework and homework is all set on show my homework.

I do agree with what your saying in theory, it’s just another way of leaving the poorest or neglected behind

Probably the Op who is paying around 20k a year for a private school.

If they want to restrict and monitor it then it isn't really yours. So I wouldn't be paying for it.

Ok but the poorest and neglected shouldn’t be left behind. The school should ensure Every single child has one. In my DD (state) it was means tested and there was a repayment plan. It is coming to every school. Parents of the future years are going to get a shock if they think their local secondary won’t ever do this!

Apart from everything else that's been said chrome books are utterly shit, and I'd refuse on that basis.

theyre "high end" apparently....

No such thing - the raison d'etre of Chromebooks is that they're rubbish very low-spec and seriously limited in power and ability, but the trade-off is that they're really cheap. That's like saying that a McDonald's Happy meal is gourmet fine dining, just because one rogue branch charges you three or four times the price of it.

£650 could buy you a low-end gaming laptop. Are they getting a massive kickback from the supplier, or are they just clueless when it comes to procurement and getting proper value for money?

I'm guessing that some company has specifically targeted the school with a package, making a huge play of all the locked down software and restrictions, and somebody at the school with no idea of IT or realistic costs has just thought it sounds like a good idea and OK'd it - like these vulture companies that sell special beds and chairs to elderly and disabled people and bank on them not being able to use the internet or get out to shops to see what the products should really cost. They definitely haven't come up with the idea themselves and planned and costed it from the ground up.

This. Indie schools really can do what they like.

If you don't like it take your £20k a year business elsewhere

I'm not a fan of private school personally, and we would never be in a position to send our DC there, even if we wanted to; but a lot of people who do send their kids there prioritise it and make big sacrifices and can't just afford to be paying out indiscriminately. Yes, they're obviously higher earners for it to be a possibility in the first place, but that doesn't necessarily make them Lord & Lady Pennybags.