AIBU to complain the school? Ipad related

[Ionlymakejokestodistractmyself]

DC y8 has a school iPad. He's v open with us and told us he'd heard of this cool site where he can watch (poor quality) movies and TV shows, pirated.

I had a look and there are many inappropriate and sexual 18 rated horror / adult movies on there.

I feel really frustrated with the lack of control we have over what sites he can access on his school ipad, we're quite strict with screens and he has a very locked down phone and limited gaming time.

We have to trust him not to watch these things as we cannot control what he does on his iPad before and during school in breaks etc (luckily he's usually outside playing sports). I also don't want to have to constantly police it when he's doing homework and revision which is all on the iPad!

AIBU to complain to the school that they have given my child an addictive device on which he can access goodness knows what, which I have no control over as a parent, and which they don't seem to either!

Surely you can police it though? You can set parental controls and supervise/limit its use at your home?

Of course you ANBU. Explain your concerns to the school.

Is the ipad ftom the school - surely they should have put controls on there. I would very much bring it to their attention and ask them to remove access - I am presuming you cant access the controls if a school one. My sons has controls on his though I still get fed up with the silly games site he can access.

Maybe I'm being incredibly thick, I'm not the most technical person, but I can't see a way I can do this. All admin rights are owned by the school. His phone is fort knox thanks to a Google Family Link. If there's a way I can do it through the wifi, that might work when he's at home, but no use when he's on school grounds or at a mate's.

My child's former primary school handed ipads out and 6 months later collected them back only to be handed out under supervision. The children did so much rubbish on them at school. Not at home.

She won’t be able to set parental controls as she isn’t the device’s admin.

Complain loud. This pisses me right off. Everything in the news at the moment about the harmful nature of SM, and schools having screen bans, only for OP’s school to hand out devices which aren’t properly locked down.

We have to trust him

Is there a reason why you can’t trust him? In your shoes, I’d tell him that a site with pirated films is not ethical to use and explain how it is stealing.

Also I should add at the moment I force him to do homework etc in the downstairs where I can see him and keep an eye on his screen but this is quite impractical. He was in tears earlier in the week because his sibling was playing a noisy instrument (which cannot be taken upstairs).

I don't think you can give a 12 year old access to the whole internet and just 'trust them'.

I'd hand the ipad back to the school, tell them he doesn't have permission to use it outside of school supervision and they will have to give him homework on paper.

I do trust him, he's a great kid. I'm just frustrated, I was working when he got home and before he told me about the site he had clicked on and watched a bit of American Psycho. Luckily nothing horrendous!

These school devices should be locked down. Ours is, to the point there’s not a huge lot you can do with them

It should not be the whole internet, the school iPad will have some restrictions on it. I think it’s law that they have a blocker installed so the kids can’t access pornography. The dodgy pirated media website is probably just not listed in their blocking software (yet).

I’m not sure on ages here, as I am Scotland, where they give them to seven year olds. We have fought to opt out of bringing home, and I mean fought.

there is a very active group “unplugscot” which has website and WhatsApp group. Lots of references to England and elsewhere as well.

I am sorry but that is today’s equivalent of a 1926 parent insisting their child do homework on a slate with chalk instead of with pencil and paper. The child is 12/13 he will need to be technologically literate to be ready for a modern workplace. Even blue collar, manual labour workers in warehouses have to use pads these days.

Ask for a meeting with safe guarding lead and take the i pad in and and turn on something horrific in front of them on it.

That will speak for itself!

A 3 year old can learn to use an ipad in minutes 😂

I like this idea 😂

Raise your concern with the school. Present it is 'I am bringing this issue to your attention so you can fix it please,' rather than a complaint.

Obviously, once you have done this, if there is not a tightening of what can be accessed, then you should complain.

On a totally separate note though - school iPads to use at home? Wow! Is this a private school or is your school just good at getting funding?

Any moron can use an ipad, they dont need teaching

😂 hilarious that you think so.

Yes there are some restrictions but they're not very helpful

🥴 not really though. Otherwise there would not be all the support requests from adults less bright than ‘morons’ (your words) that can’t figure out how to do x on their pad.

No it's an academy with £££ it seems

It’s easy to send an email and the offending website can be added to the blocker.