AIBU to be angry about primary school iPads without parent consultation?

[Doormouse79]

AIBU to be furious that our primary school trust pushed through iPads for Year 3/4 without engaging with parents?

Posting because I’m honestly so frustrated and I’d really appreciate some advice from other parents.
My child is at a Surrey school within Xavier Catholic Education Trust. The Trust has rolled out a 1:1 iPad scheme for Year 3 and Year 4 children: so we’re talking about 7, 8 and 9-year-olds, not teenagers.
The issue isn’t that I’m anti-technology. I’m really not. I understand schools use iPads and apps now. But this feels like a huge change to the way young children are being taught, and it seems to have been pushed through before parents were properly asked, informed or listened to. The Trust seems heavily involved with a Hong Kong-based/ international venture-capital backed company who appear to be developing their products based on our children's data. That's not necessarily suspect or wrong, but shouldn't we be entitled to explanations? Surely this cannot be right?
A large group of parents (around 40 across the three year groups) raised concerns. These weren’t just people moaning about screen time. Parents asked reasonable questions like:

1. Are iPads really needed every day for children this young?
2. What is the educational benefit?
3. How much screen time are they actually getting?
4. What happens to the children’s work and information once it’s uploaded?
5. Where is the children's data going and being stored in the world?
6. Who can see what they’re doing?
7. What checks were done before this was introduced?
8. Can parents opt out or have an alternative? (We have been told NO).

Instead of being properly engaged with, parents feel we’ve been fobbed off.
Requests for a proper meeting were declined. We’ve had generic reassurances and glossy-sounding explanations, but not clear answers to the actual questions being asked.
One of the things that really bothers me is that, as far as we’ve been told, there wasn’t a proper written risk assessment (a "Data Protection Impact Assessment") done before this was rolled out. Given this involves young children using iPads, school apps, online platforms, stored schoolwork and teacher monitoring, I find that hard to understand.
There is also apparently a system where teachers can monitor what pupils are doing on the iPads in real time. I’m not saying teachers shouldn’t supervise children — of course they should. But surely parents are entitled to know exactly how this works, what the limits are, and what safeguards are in place?
Another thing that feels uncomfortable is that staff from the Trust seem to have been involved in presenting alongside Goodnotes / EdTech projects connected with the sort of technology now being used in classrooms. Maybe that’s all perfectly above board, but if the Trust is that closely involved with promoting this kind of thing, shouldn’t they be extra careful to show parents that they’ve properly and independently checked whether it’s right for our children?
What’s also maddening is that this scheme was apparently still “in development” when introduced, and there didn’t seem to be solid evidence yet that it actually improves learning for children this young. Yet it has still been pushed ahead and expanded.
Parents haven’t been offered any meaningful alternative either. So in practice, it feels compulsory. You either go along with it or your child risks being the odd one out.
The tone from the Trust has really upset people too. Rather than treating parents as people with legitimate concerns about their children, the response has felt defensive and dismissive, almost as though we are being awkward for asking basic questions.
I just don’t think this is good enough.
This is about young children. It’s about how they learn, how much time they spend on screens, what happens to their schoolwork and personal information, and whether parents are being respected.
AIBU to think a school trust should not be rolling out something this significant without proper consultation, clear answers and proper checks first?
Has anyone else challenged an academy trust over something like this? Where would you go next — governors, the Trust board, the Diocese, ICO, Ofsted, MP?
I don’t want to be labelled “that parent”, but I also don’t think parents should be expected to just shut up and trust the system when the system won’t answer straightforward questions.
Would you escalate this formally? And where would you start?

I've worked in year 5 with iPads for the last 8 years.
I did my best to retrain, embrace a certain amount of inevitability about technology use in classrooms and I've tried to see the positives.
However I have ended up thoroughly convinced that we need a serious rethink.
I've been teaching 35 years and have seen how children's learning journey has changed beyond recognition in the last 10-15 years.
Technology has it's place, but it's definitely overused ( in my school anyway) to the detriment of pupil's attention span and acquisition of basic skills.
I have fought hard and long this year with school management and have succeeded in reducing the usage by 75% next year.
Schools need look at what's happening in Scandinavian countries where technology use in classrooms is being peeled right back.

I'm sorry this is your situation OP.
And year 3 and 4 sound very young to be introduced to this type of learning. I wouldn't be too concerned about safety because we do have very strict controls..but I just despair sometimes about the complete inability to concentrate on the spoken word or traditional text that comes as a result of screen usage.
I'd definitely keep pushing for information in your position.

Have a Google search for academic research in this area.. there has been some pretty shocking data from america showing a direct correlation (note - not causation, which would be impossible to prove) between the level of technology in the classroom and educational outcomes.

It's pretty linear and clear. More tech = lower outcomes on average. Not improved.

I think year 3/4 is quite hard to justify. My daughter has had an iPad for year 5 onwards and it has worked well. She is not on it all the time and still has a mixture of written homework and iPad homework. She also does not use it for every lesson. Importantly it is locked down at 8pm and it is taken back in during school holidays. In the first few weeks some of the children were a bit silly re messaging and emails but that was under control pretty quickly. it has been helpful in aiding independence of homework completion, managing schedule etc.

While I think it has been good for her age group, there is no way on earth I’d want her sister to have one as she enters year 3. It is a responsibility keeping it safe and I think that age group really need to be working on hand writing, social communication, reading. I actively wouldn’t want a 7 year old to have one but have been ok from 9/10 plus.

The iPads in schools do annoy me tbh. It's been a lot of trouble with them getting lost/broken. It's another expense to pay out for. It's something else to lock away at night and argue over. They get in trouble for messing around playing games on them in lessons. Everyone complains that kids are on screens too much, and are losing skills like handwriting, but then schools give everyone an iPad. I don't think they help

I agree with you. No need. I think my 90s education with exercise books and text books, with homework you had to write and give in and that your mum could see evidence of, was far better than the education my two now college aged boys have had. I never knew what homework they were doing because it was all online and a lot of it they finished at school. Or it was stuff like online maths quizzes which bounced about from concept to concept and didn’t consolidate any learning.

I used to teach primary and several years ago I was doing a day’s supply in a junior class. I was working with one group of kids, another had to research an animal in a book and write down facts and another group had to do the same but research on the internet. At the end of the lesson when I checked how much the groups had got written the one using the books had quite a bit written down and the one using the internet had nothing because there was too much info and they didn’t know what they were looking for and what info to use etc. I thought there and then that children using information books was far more beneficial for them!

YANBU. I know it’s a big upheaval but I’d be seriously considering moving schools over this.

The teacher monitoring what they are doing is likely to be enough Apple classroom - that will only work if they're in the room with them so they won't be watching their screen at home or anything like that

There are many many issues, as you have highlighted, but the main one for me is that there is no evidence introducing ipads and other edtech actually improves kids' learning, alongside plenty of risks associated with doing it.

The school have fobbed you and everyone else off, so it's time to go nuclear. Contact the governors, contact the press, refuse to send your kids to school until there is a proper discussion. If you band together as parents they will be forced to engage with you. For me it's a straightforward no. I would not send my kids to a school that did this.

I really appreciate all of these responses...I've felt some overwhelmed with it all, trying to do the right thing for my kids, whilst also respecting the school. I love the school...the teachers are all amazing...its the Trust's leadership and governance that is failing in this situation.
About ten parents are all currently looking at new schools, but this in itself is a challenge, because with so many parents looking at the same time, spaces which were already limited, are even more so now. The whole thing just feels so hopeless.

Sweden (I think) were one of the first implementers of this- and have since taken it out of classrooms again and now are back to traditional learning and teaching. It was on radio 4 yesterday about 5.30 ish

I came on to say about Sweden, they have realised it doesnt work. My teenagers have it in secondary and they have all hacked the chromebooks to access games during lessons. They say half the class are playing games instead of learning.

Are parents consulted on change of what brand of pencil or pen is used

It's modern lazy teaching

Lesson plans are bought in and teachers just supervise
However it's modern tech and they need to learn how to use it.... And I imagine every kid in the class has access to a device at home

I think this is the first step towards classes of 50-100 being delivered lectures on an IPAD then work thru AI. It is terrifying in all honesty. Children have ALWAYS learned within their communities from trusted adults and the rich will continue to do so. The poor will be give tech and expected to 'download' an education.

I'd probably start by setting out a letter explaining that my child is Forbidden from using an ipad and if they can't offer a reasonable alternative then they are to send my child home as an exclusion. Daily.

You will then follow the necessary process to secure an alternative school placement and that youre coping in your local suthority and MP for awareness that the school are preventing your child from accessing an education on the grounds that the change has been pushed through and St a point where you cannot reasonably find an alternative school or go through the necessary application step in time.

Could you explain what type of learning children do on their iPads? Apart from apps like Times tables rockstars or spelling apps for ten minutes and the one they use from computing lessons, children don’t access iPads in daily lessons. I don’t understand the uproar? When are your children using iPads?

Yes I would be angry. My child would not be using them. Notebooks and pens or I’m moving them.

Your child is being prepared to enter a digitally driven workforce. They need to learn to use technology properly and appropriately. I find it a little odd that my DC uses books at school and we only get to see it at parents evening. I think you have 2 choices either embrace this, it's the future or pop on your tinfoil hat and move schools.

Until recently, I was a teacher and taught in schools with iPads. If I was deciding on schools for my own child, whether or not they have iPads would be a huge factor in that choice. I loathe them. Giving kids devices that young absolutely wrecks their attention span. You can't even stick a film on for a nice lesson anymore because they can't sit and watch it without getting bored after 30 seconds and starting their own conversations or trying to go on a device. In a classroom, it's a constant game of wack-a-mole trying to get them off whatever game or YouTube video they've found and back to their work.

This is nonsense. They can learn to use it when they’re older and their brains and eyes are developed.

Half of Gen Z already don’t have legible handwriting. This will make it worse. There are skills formed through books and pens and paper… not just screens that damage their eyes

We live in Sweden, yes it has been removed and reading progress quickly started returning to previous levels and behaviour of children improved. Schools still have tech of course, at our sons school computers are only used to learn how to code, use word, excel and powerpoint in his age group, next year they bring in more web use and web safety.

No reading apps, no maths apps etc.

This is fantastic to hear @Simonjt

YANBU at all OP. I find it deeply ironic that we all moan that children with young developing brains have too much screen time and as parents are are constantly battling to reduce it, yet schools bring in more and more screen based learning.

Hi OP If you have no choice then please do the following.
As well as the ipad, still teach your child to read from real books. Still reach your child how to write on lined and unlined paper and spelling from books and cards. Use the ipad for research. Learn how the school programs work as they are a good way of seeing your childs progress.
I speak as a person who sees children using these abominations on a daily basis!

Tbh this would make me pull my children out. I home educate my 3 wndnits the best thing I've ever done. We read books all thr time and I limit screen time

Agree with this

My daughter is in year 4 and laptop/ipad time has been essential to her learning this year as they used them a lot to practice their maths and TT Rock Stars for their MTC test they did in June. If they hadn’t had that extra practice time my daughter wouldn’t have gotten in the practice that she needed under teacher supervision. Obviously she did it at home using our own laptop/iPad but I do think that as children get older they need to use the equipment that can help them learn - especially TTRS as the MTC was based off the Soundtrack TTRS game. Doing that using pen and paper wouldn’t have been anywhere near as effective for her class.