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?

that’s different; the schools where they do what the op describes each child has an iPad that they take home and bring to school. Most lessons use it and all homework is done on it

we have a trolley though and I still prefer stand alone computers for IT work.

they use them for everything. The iPad is technically the child’s

I’m a teacher - 100% in agreement op. Keep at it and speak to governors.
IPad use - it has a place eg maths fluency but that is 20 mins a day tops TOPS

I am not disagreeing with your statement saying the written research was more in-depth than the online research, but this is exactly the reason it should be taught and encouraged to do online research. The wah of the world is online and prompt engineering (what you ask, how you ask, to get answers is a skill). That should be taught in school nowadays.

this with bells on. too much screen time say the government but allow schools to move to screen based learning. absolutely ridiculous

Think most schools have them now? Round here anyway. There is a private school that doesn't, and you could homeschool, but think in our area that would be your only options, and if you work away, that might be quite difficult.
Or you could ask any teachers that might post on here if there's state schools in your area that aren't using them?

You are lucky ! In my kids previous school was from p1 and I told tem my concerns too as she has adhd and would 100% prefer to write on a iPad than handwriting. Her handwriting now in p5 is awful and we changed schools 🏫 n p3 and they where shocked for the access to the iPad that early too . They now use them on p5 and I can see why but I don’t see the need on p1 and p2 when they are actively develeoping writhing and numeracy skills .

What level has she reached in her writhing skills?

You normally have to sign a consent form

If you have a legitimate concern that your child's data is being shared to a 3rd party without your consent you can report this to ICO for further investigation.
Have you signed anything to give consent for your child to use the ipads? Did you get an answer on who is viewing the work once completed? If not then i’d say you have reason to report and hopefully get clearer answers as you have concerns.

In the 90s we had one computer per class and barely spent any time on it, just the occasional chance to play Granny's Garden or do some word processing practice. This is very very different to using ipads daily.

You are not being unreasonable to want to know exactly what they are being used for and how much screen time they are having etc. I think it really depends on the answers to those questions as to whether this is something to worry about or not.

Personally, I am against too much tech in childhood/ adolescence. I teach resitters in a college and it is utterly shocking what I see on a daily basis. I see teenagers with handwriting that looks like it belongs to a 5 year old. I see people who never use any form of punctuation and randomly mix up upper and lower case letters. I see people who can’t sit and listen to a short extract being read out to them without losing interest. It takes them 15 minutes to start a simple task and they get bored after a few minutes. Yes, these are resitters but this should absolutely not be happening. They sit and doom scroll on their phones in the corridors, never even looking up to talk to their peers or a teacher when greeted.

People say kids need to learn tech for the sake of being employable in the future. Let me tell you, there’s no way I’d want to employ some of these kids. They don’t have basic life skills because tech has had such a negative impact on them. I seriously limit my own kids’ use of tech as a result. I think this is a national crisis, and many parents have no idea how they damaging their kids in not having strict enough limits.

What are they using them for? I work in a primary, most classes in KS2 have a class set of chromebooks. We don't use them all the time though. We use them for TT rockstars and spelling shed mostly. Accelerated reader tests when they've read a book. Coding for ICT lessons. Then very occasionally if we've for example done DT, they might film a 30 sec video showing what they've done and how and upload it to tapestry. Again occasionally, a bit of research. I would say they spend less than 30 mins a day on them on average. Given that the majority of pupils seem to spend 80% of their out of school free time on screens, I'm not sure why 1/12 of their school day, beneficial for learning, is an issue.

My son (now at uni) said the same. Even when he was trying to concentrate in the class, out of the corner of his eye, he could see kids looking at memes, playing games etc. And they all knew how to hack them. His teachers used to ask him to sort things out for them as he was the ‘tech’ kid. Kids have atrocious concentration spans these days and have all these things at home plus electronic whiteboards etc in the classroom. No need for any more!

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).

This sounds like the answers have already been answered in your mind and they’re all negative.

The real question is; why do you think it’s a problem if the school uses iPads?

No need to hide behind ‘reasonable’ questions when what you want to do is let-loose about why it’s a problem. Just make sure your reasoning is factually sound and not simply a bluster of hypothetical what-ifs and unsubstantiated hear-say.

I’d be very upset about this. If you look into all the big tech company CEOs, none of them let their kids use this tech and send them to screen free schools, because they don’t want their own children to be zombies

What is wrong with you? Most schools rolled out iPads years ago so your kids are in fact, behind. It’s not like they can watch porn on them. Get a grip

No, most schools absolutely have not had individual Ipads for the majority of learning from Y3.

I feel quite worried for these children being taught with screens and not getting the chance to learn the skills they really need in life. Very against ipads and other screens in school beyond things like IT lessons and occasional use for things like maths games. That's pretty much how it's done in DS's primary school, they get some lessons on things like touch typing and coding (and later on, power point) but this is only occasional, the rest of the time they are using textbooks and exercise books or other non screen learning.

I was at school in the 1970s and 1980s. I had a shonky ZX Spectrum at home that I would occasionally programme and played games on. I don't think I saw a computer at school until 6th form.

I didn't have any problem using them in the workplace. They're designed to be easy to use and have got more so over the years!

People are obsessed with hating technology. I find it odd. Embracing technology will help prepare children for a digitally driven workforce. My own career being self employed now heavily uses AI. I'm mid 40s.and if I didn't embrace it, I would risk being unemployed in what I do.

I'm sure it will be in moderation and children will still be using a wide range of skills.that don't involve tablets.

The only school (a secondary) that rolled out individual iPads several years ago quietly dropped them last year. They were pointless and kids easily found ways to mess about and do exactly what they liked. It would be a hard no for me at primary level.

Not been able to read your whole post but just to say same thing happened at my dcs schools 5 years ago. No consultation with students or parents. No idea if teachers were consulted. Fast forward 5 years and the MAT has gone bust £10m black hole- partly attributed to the iPads- bailouts from DFE and all iPads have been handed back. My kids, and most others I believe, HATED them. They had to remember to charge them every night and teachers hated having to sanction kids as they'd inevitably forgot to do it. They were heavy to carry and a complete distraction in lesson time as kids were always messing on them. Most ed tech is rubbish , screen time has been proven to be bad for children's eyes and brain development and it also means that if they have all that screen time at school they technically can't have it at home which is unfair. I would absolutely fight this.

Tech companies are clearly making a fortune out of the British education system. The academy system was designed to help businessmen make money out of children.

When teachers are talking about 'no money for glue pens' it must be a kick in the teeth when the school budget suddenly finds tens of thousands of pounds to give 6yr olds ipads.

Slightly missing lthe point here but why is it always ipads and not vastly cheaper Android tablets? The cost must be astonishingly high, paticularly when given to children. And as a former teacher no, I don't think this is a good idea for this age group. Let kids learn the basics in the traditional way, then at secondary age add in a portion of computer based work.