To be sick of school directly undermining me

[LainaDelBoy]

I’m at my wits end and really need some external perspective from people outside my local school/council area. (I moved to another part of the UK to raise my children, so this is not the school system I went through myself and isn't an area where there's much school choice - if you're not happy, you pay to go private it seems).

Since starting school at five, DD has routinely used a school-issued iPad (no one told me this would happen). I gradually discovered, mainly through what she told me rather than information from the school, that she had been signed up to all sorts of platforms and apps without me knowing/us being asked to approve.

It seems she has watched YouTube during lessons (I've regularly heard they've done PE on YouTube/"music" I've learned is often a sing along Disney song with the words at the bottom? etc) and come home talking about things seen in adverts. Some of the apps have coins, rewards and "friend" features which was a lovely (!!) sudden introduction to class bullying to deal with. and she's been using AI tools on the thing, but school haven't ever told me what it is/why/and I still don’t know what that tool was.

This week, another mum has just confirmed that the school ipads DO also all have email addresses through which they could message one another (although kids like mine age 5 aren't told the passwords for a couple of years yet - thankfully apaprently).

and tonight she's just come home talking about reading a book at school, only for a few questions later for it to bcome clear that it's not a BOOK book, it's another bloody ebook they scroll through on the ipad.

Stepping back a bit: I feel as though the school and council have taken away my ability to manage how much screen time my DD gets, while telling me I have "no legal right to opt out" of so much screentime at school when I asked about toning it down last year (I didn't ask for specifics, I just asked about the messaging stuff, and how much time they were on the iPad for typically).

We game a lot as a family (consoles/etc so i'm not anti-screens generally), but i just feel like there's a constant barrage of poorly done apps, videos and AI without clear limits or safeguards in her classrom. I don't know if it's like this in all schools.

In the UK, would you consider this "normal" or acceptable? Have other parents successfully asked for reduced digital screen learning/alternatives? AIBU to keep challenging it (the council are quite adament that their policy has zero flex)?

I don't know where to go from here and i don't want to be "that parent" but there are so many red flags here but i don't know if to keep pushing on it?

Sorry OP but you simply do not have the right to control how information is shared with children or to hold back the use of technologies in the classroom.

It has been routine for pads to be used in primary for over a decade and it won't be changing.

Private schools have more tablets and laptops for pupil use than state schools so if you want complete control over your child's use of technologi4es you will need to home school AND avoid the vast majority of quality homeschooling materials as they are all online!

I think you need to chill a bit, in honesty.

There are LOTS of great educational apps which pose zero threat to kids. I regularly used Youtube videos in my teaching and that was a long time ago.

I'm afraid when kids go to school you do lose lots of control as a parent.

Probably best to make your peace with it an assume the educators know better when it comes to learning.

I think this is more common than most parents realise. I recently had a job as a TA at a ofsted rated Outstanding school nursery and was shocked at the amount of screen time the children have. They were read a few pages of a book such as the gruffalo and would then watch the episode of it or similar. Maths was watching number blocks. PE was a YouTube video where the children would crowd around the screen watching rather than moving. The TV was put on for them at lunchtime, an overstimulating show such as cocomelon. After lunch they watched Danny Go on YouTube and then at the end of the day they watched half an hour of TV while waiting for pick up time. The only time they weren’t watching screens was during child initiated play.

It was ridiculous and their behaviour was awful!

I think you’re being a bit OTT.

The maths sounds like Sumdog or similar. It has loads of interactive math games and the teacher can set challenges. They can add friends so they can see the leaderboard. It’s not a messaging service.

You haven’t answered how much screen time she actually has a school. I’m thinking 10 mins here or there.

It’s not normal where I am. Our children have Chromebooks at school but they use them for computing lessons only and when getting ready for on screen test like the year 4 multiplication test.

Id be very frustrated with that. School should be full of books - no ebooks should be needed, especially at her age!
There’s plenty of research as to why ebooks are not as good as books and why too much screen time is not good for children’s development.

Id probably try to involve my MP? Local paper?

What country are you in?

My Dd was brought up on CBeebies, we watched it together and interacted with the characters and activities, it helped me to teach her all sorts of stuff. I'm sure your DD will be having the same experience at school, hopefully all her screen use will be supervised and age appropriate

That’s depressing.

I assume you are in Scotland. The recent PISA results show how poor education is in Scotland so sadly this doesn’t surprise me. The situation in England is very different. It’s worth being specific about where you are because education is a devolved issue.

I’m absolutely stunned by so many replies saying this is how it is and defending it. I think some technology in schools absolutely has its place but no way in a million years would I be ok with this and it is also absolutely not the norm where I am (a zone 2 London borough). When I’ve looked round primary schools, they only use tablets for that multiplication game, and laptops are brought in in older years for specific projects. I think this is lazy, depressing and detrimental teaching, and I’m a huge proponent of technology. But there’s a lot more time for that in senior school.

If you have concerns surely the best thing to do would be contact the school. Ask your DD's teacher what they're using iPad for

My kids aren’t allowed YouTube. When the oldest started school and they put YouTube on, she sat there with her hands covering her eyes 😆 the teacher obviously asked what was wrong and she said she’s not allowed to watch YouTube….

It’s a nightmare OP. The school my kids go to have to do all of their homework electronically even from reception 😢 I would have moved them, but they are with lots of friends and seem to be doing quite well all things considered.

In answer to your question they do have loads of apps for various things. They had one that imitated social media (like Facebook) but ended up switching off the chat function when they were inundated with complaints. In my experience the only way to force change is to get loads and loads of parents behind you and all challenge them together.

I’ve voted YABU because you haven’t seemingly asked the school about this yet, just taken the word of your DC.

I think there is a real balance here- totally agree on the need for paper-based leaning but for some subjects, things online are so useful. And I couldn’t get worked up about a bit of music. I think provided the school is using their discretion and has sensible policies in place I would not get involved.

That said if you specifically don’t want your child working on iPads etc I think there’s nothing stopping you raising with them, but they might make the point that your child might not be able to access the whole curriculum. For example if the class is doing an online tour of a museum how would your child access that? And I don’t think schools can deal with this on a piecemeal basis (museum tour fine, 5 mins of Hey Duggee not fine) as this would be an administrative nightmare with 30 kids in a class.

Also remember that for lots of middle class parents, the issue is too much screen time, but for others using iPads at school
might be the only chance they get to use them, which seems to me to be quite important. If a child were to start secondary without a basic level of computer literacy that would be a disaster, and widen the gap for less privileged children.

my year 3 child has never used an iPad in school. I would be very concerned personally if he was on one as much as your daughter is.

I don’t think this is normal. I had a reception aged child in Covid and I hated the e-book platform so much I just bought my own reading scheme books and cracked on.

At my children’s primary, they used the white board a lot in reception but no iPads. They did specific ICT lessons on laptops from year 1. My eldest moved to a prep and got an iPad for year 5. It has been helpful and a useful educational tool but I wouldn’t have wanted her to have it any younger. The first few weeks there was some nonsense as they were getting used to the tech. 5 year olds shouldn’t be on then.

That’s BS. The schools are steam rolled with technology they don’t need, they don’t know how to use. It’s proven that kids learn better through actually handwriting and reading real books. People are very very naive to think iPads in schools with young kids are okay. It is absolutely not okay and parents should be worried and push back.

at the end of the day, huge tech companies are winning contracts with the school. This is not about education - it’s about money

Yes. At first I assumed that you just want to read actual books and are anti-tech for kids, so was going to say that no state school I'd heard of would suit, so consider homeschooling, but then you say you game a lot, OP
Maybe join the library and go to book only events/bring paper books to use at home instead. It's free and you can get lots of books and reading trails etc.

Scotland has a digital learning platform called Glow. Every pupil and teacher is given a Glow email address so pupils have the ability to contact any other pupil and teacher in the country as well as use it like a regular email address.

Were people paying for this?

Not that is matters, it's dreadful.

No I think it sounds crap and lazy. There's a time and a place for screens. I think using them for everything is completely unnecessary

Also I am sorry to say I think it’s a bit odd that you’re considering complaining to school about a bit of iPad use, which most likely has a degree of educational content, whilst gaming a lot at home. Surely the first thing is to stop or dramatically reduce screen time at home rather than anything else?

It's no wonder kids can't read and write properly any more.

Reading a book on an ipad is NOTHING like reading a real book and they need to learn to use a pencil/pen.

Sounds like lazy teaching.

Not typical at all and I’d be pissed off

I agree with you OP it's ridiculous . My nephew was due to go back to school on Monday but because the internet was off couldn't until Tuesday ! This after being off for six weeks . What's wrong with putting an actual book in front of them or a pencil and paper

You may be interested to know that my friend who is a Dutch primary school teacher said this was all the rage about 7 years ago there. Throw out the books and bring in the iPads. Over about 5 years standards dropped dramatically and now they’ve been abandoned and it’s back to pen and paper and real books. Everyone agreed it was a failed experiment.

But the primary schools I know near me (south east) don’t do this and I’ve never heard my grandchildren mention an iPad. So you’re unusual I think.

OK, I'm old. Make that old fashioned. But do they actually have qualified teachers or just someone to help them log on? What a depressing world we live in when we spend hours looking at screens. Time for to switch off and read a book.