To be put off school by tablet use?

[Monuy]

Would love to know if this is normal.

We went to view our closest primary school and the one we want to go for. Noticed the children in year 2 were clustered around tablets, in an unstructured fashion. Teacher had a few more and gave them out to children who asked.

Apparently tablets with educational games are used frequently in lessons, and homework is set requiring a tablet or phone to complete it. This starts from reception. I was a bit taken back. We were hoping to hold off on tablets for as long as possible. DS watches television in the family room and we aren't too bothered about restricting that, but in terms of devices has only ever had 10-15 minutes or so playing on a game on a phone maybe once a month. We are not keen to encourage this- feel it's a slippery slope which will need constant boundary setting and monitoring. They have free rein of Disney plus and children's iPlayer - nothing else. I've genuinely never felt the need yet to purchase a tablet. I don't want to moralise about it, just not keen.

The staff were very enthusiastic about this. Am I just out of touch? This has made me genuinely doubt sending him there.

Yep, it’s standard. You’ll be expected to buy your child an iPad to use in secondary school as well.

YANBU. It's one of my main criteria choosing primary schools.

Computer use is introduced early in primary school and it’s part of National Curriculum for. Key Stage 1 which is lower part of primary school. Due to costs and space it’s more sensible for schools to use tablets where they are sufficient to meet the curriculum requirements so I think you’ll struggle to find a school that doesn’t use them, and even if they don’t they will use laptops instead.

It’s absolutely not standard in primary school and I wouldn’t be keen either. It is definitely worth looking around and keeping an open mind about other schools in the area before you make your mind up one way or another.

I think that sounds awful. Tablets were only used occasionally, not even once per week at DS's infant and junior schools.

Sorry; seeing other posters above - yes it is standard for kids to learn how to use laptops and ipads but I wouldn’t say them being used frequently to support lessons is standard, it will vary quite a bit so I would look around.

It absolutely is supposed to be and would be suggestive of a school struggling with funding if they don’t have them, which then points to a school that possibly isn’t one you want your child to go to.

Not the norm in my childrens school. Mine are in reception and Y2. I wouldn’t expect regular device use in school until at least Y4/5.

Probably should have added, my children are already well aware how to use a computer/tablet/smartphone from use at home so I wouldn’t be at all concerned if their school implemented such devices or required them. They are a generation that will grow up with almost everything they do requiring technology so it’s good to have that early familiarity, My oldest child in Y2 does “computer lessons” which consists of worksheets asking basic questions like “what is the internet?” I’d expect handwriting skills, non technological and the early foundations of education to be focused on first though.

Here’s the curriculum for Computer Science - https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7c576be5274a1b00423213/PRIMARY_national_curriculum_-_Computing.pdf

I actually have no idea if my daughter's school has tablets, she's in year 1 and hasn't mentioned them. She tells me they watch the Julia Donaldson shorts on the whiteboard though.

They don't do homework on tablets either, it's all paper.

They will knock that out in a half term of once a week computing lessons, rather than embedding devices in the classroom full time.

I would have thought all primary schools have tablets now. Although they didn't use them in my kids school until year 3 I think. Certainly not in reception or year 1.

Some local schools are giving one to every child in year 5&6 and they carry that on to the same trust high school. Which is also becoming more common.

The homework side of things, most don't require the use of a tablet or phone so you can use a laptop or computer to access them if that is what you have at home. I would argue that actually getting them used to using a full computer/laptop is more useful anyway as a lot of kids start high school only ever having used a tablet or smartphone and don't even seem to know how to use a mouse. And while yes using smartphones is great for a lot of things being able to use a laptop type device is still actually quite useful also.
Schools have been doing online homework for some time now, although again my kids school wasn't until they where in the older years.

It's lazy and ignorant for a school to rely on tablets, especially for year 2 kids.

It's like crack for their little brains.

Just teach them how to read and do sums FFS.

Set them some voluntary homework that might involve online access. Parents can choose what kind of involvement they want their child to have with devices.

Tablets are designed to be "idiot proof" meaning you don't need any skill or experience to be able to use them. No sense in forcing them upon Y2 kids.

It’s in no way standard.

Yes, schools have iPads, which are used on occasion but not for the majority or lessons.

One of my friends dc went to an iPad reliant primary school and it was a load of shit frankly.

I’ve never once heard of a secondary school where parents have to buy an iPad. Even if that is a thing m the OP’s child is three so it’s not relevant. iPads might be obsolete in eight years for a start.

We have enough Chromebooks for 50 per cent of children in school to use one at once. Like most primaries, we use them for Computing lessons, some maths games and not much else. Without doubt, at least 3 days a week children don't use them at all and on the days they do it is rarely for more than 45 mins total (and often less than half that). There's no online homework. I don't think that's unusual at all.

Mine too.

Interesting. From yr1 two years ago mine had computer lessons which was going to computer room, typing/tinkering on keyboard, learning basics about staying safe online, using google canvas to draw their portraits. This was built upon last year and continues this year. Since term started they have done more about thinking up and using passwords, logging in and out. My son is keen on hacking 😁. They use chrome books and are not necessarily a well resourced school.

Eta: they are not allowed free rein and I don't think computer lessons are daily.

I think the complete opposite and would not want my own children to go to a school that was using iPads in most of the lessons. I’ve been a primary school teacher for thirty years. We have iPads and we have laptops but we don’t use them in most lessons by any stretch. Probably twice a week.

So, I teach year 6 and we just did two very successful lessons on the iPads. Today we read newspaper articles on the newsround website and used another website called seesaw to copy and paste features of newspaper articles onto it. The children got a lot out of this. Yesterday we looked at evolution and searched on Google for animal adaptations, then summarised how these helped them survive. With both of these lessons, before the iPads, I would have had to print information off for the kids and they wouldn’t have had the same independence over their own learning.

i have been teaching for ten years and have gone from no iPads to a class iPad to children having an iPad trolly across the school
we can access. Used effectively they are very good for teaching and learning. The class also use them effectively to help them, need to see something on the board closer? Take a picture. Check a calculation? It’s a calculator. Google an interesting fact? It’s there! They even used the google translate tool to talk to the new boy who only speaks Portuguese. They learn a lot of times tables from playing TTrockstars too.

I say this as a mum of a 4 year old and 1 year old who have no screen time at all at our house (they watch a bit of telly at granny’s house twice a week and that is honestly it).

I’m happy for my daughter to learn how to use the iPads in school, as it helps her fit in and they are a good teaching tool (used effectively).

Not all screen time is equal. There are some fantastic learning opportunities on the internet. Computers are part of life nowadays and it’s right that children should learn about them.

I think that as long as there is plenty of time not on any kind of screen that the opportunities that tech is giving children can make learning engaging and productive. At our school, we use iPads for a lot of maths lessons. Not for the whole lesson- which is a mixture of teacher input, children using concrete resources and guided practice etc. But 3 times a week or so the independent work is on this particular educational app.

its actually amazing. The programme is intuitive so if the child is getting lots of a certain type of question wrong, it will give them more practice on this question type. The teacher’s laptop is connected to all the children’s iPads so if a lot of them are getting one particular question wrong, you can freeze everyone’s iPad and give more input. There is space for children to draw diagrams or models to work out the answers. It’s been brilliant and really improved results. I’m fairly technophobic but have struggled to see a downside.

Not normal in our school and would put me off. I wish we could go back to separate ICT lessons and remove all the gameification of education. Theres little evidence that using tablets etc is beneficial for kids, it’s progress without much of an evidence base.

It's normal. It's also necessary in a world where every job involves using technology. Holding back on a child developing their IT skills is on par with holding them back on learning to write.

It’s normal in our school but is used in a much more structured way and each child has a very limited time to use the tablet. It hasn’t led to requests for a tablet at home and my seven year olds still don’t have regular TV time, let alone access to any other device. Most other families are the same. It’s a private school that goes up to 18 and it’s typical for 16 year olds at the school not to have smartphones.

most of our local schools are run by the same academy trust and all children year 1 upwards were issued with an iPad each. There are definitely advantages and disadvantages. It levels the playing field for the less advantaged children but the safeguarding has recently been called in to question. My year 3 child avoids his school iPad at all costs when he’s at home!