Use of tablets in London prep schools

[JaMoBaSe]

Our daughter will start reception next year and we're concerned about the use of iPads, TVs and other electronic screens in primary schools across most West London prep schools. I'd love to learn about which schools minimize the use of these devices and which ones use them extensively. Are any schools rethinking their use of screens? Thanks!!

I would like to know too! We've just been doing school tours and every classroom has a huge screen and kids use ipads from year 3!

We're in South East London though.

Schools should integrate tablets from reception and teach the skills
It is 2025 tablets and tech have a role in education in conjunction with pencil & paper
what do you want.? Sepia toned picture of prep kids using quill and ink and school actively not using tablets

Wow, what an inappropriate comment. It contributes nothing to the question and it’s full of ignorance.

Yes, every classroom has a huge screen. You'll notice that they probably don't have a blackboard or write-on whiteboard.
Instead of writing/drawing on the board with their back to the class, the modern teacher can prepare what they want on the board in advance, complete with neat diagrams with multiple colours and even moving pictures.
That takes more preparation time, of course, so it's good that they are able to get the pupils to complete some activities using apps which mean that they can have instant feedback, instead of having to wait for the teacher to spend hours ticking and crossing.

Wow what? Wanting to actively avoid tech at school is purposefully obtuse and unrealistic..
Our children live in a world with tech and need to feel safe & confident using it
Of course schools have white boards,tablets,screens it is appropriate and educational

Wow. There is a lot of evidence that Ed Tech doesn't help the children at all. Writing and reading on paper has better retention rates than anything learnt or written on a screen. The less they do on a screen as children, the better.

Our children are at secondary school. One school uses tablets for everything. No text books. Each child brings their own tablet. Massive distraction to learning. The girls are on social media and the boys are gaming during lessons. It makes it difficult to help your child as you both have to hunch over the tablet rather than looking in text books etc.

We hate it.

There is zero reason for schools to use tablets in class or homework. Pen and paper should be prioritised for obvious reasons, so much research supporting this.

Children do not need to be taught in school how to use devices. I know this from watching my toddler pick up a phone and in 3 seconds understand a touch screen. They do need to be taught how to be responsible digital citizens, but you don't actually need to do that on a device.

We attend west London schools and I specifically chose them because they use very little tech to teach, and have a strict ban on mobile phones. So these school's exist, and it's an easy one to check on a visit, reading the schools policies on the website or even a quick email to admissions. I would say though that every school I have visited and including the ones we attend, the teachers teach from a large screen. Whiteboards and chalkboards are long gone.

Not unusual for there to be 10-20 mins here and there on educational apps. Dyslexia and phonics apps are in widespread use but not all day. It's almost game based learning and very effective.

We also used an App called "Hit the Button" for times tables which is very effective. My kids are teens now and give it the odd blast as a game with us.

Used in the right way, it's a tool and it's part of their world. Unsupervised access and or access to Youtube is a definite no for me. As a platform it's very difficult to control what the kids watch next once they've finished with the prescribed content and it develops highly addictive behaviour.

Our prep is in North London, and has a deliberate low-tech approach. There is an interactive whiteboard in every class, used when relevant but alongside lots of hands-on and physical demonstrations. Students primarily use pencils and exercise books. Ipads and laptops are used in Computing lessons, and a bit more in the later years when they use Atom, but used sparingly in other lessons. They set homework for Numbots and TTRS, and there are some other apps used like Linguaphone for French but I don't think it is done in class. There is a general ethos of bringing screen use to a minimum, and they have had guest speakers talking about smartphone-free childhoods, and encouraging family time without screens. Generally only the Yr 6 pupils have phones (because they start to travel to school alone) but they are handed in at the office and collected at the end of the day.

I've visited other schools and many of them are quite keen to be digital-based and set work as a default on tablets, with rows of pupils with their own tablet/laptop for every lesson, so it varies and you have to visit each school to know their approach. Our school has a lot of activity sheets printed out and stuck into exercise books (a lot of work for the TAs!) and I'm sure some schools just think that it saves paper and time, to just answer the same questions on a screen. But I agree with pp that it is different, somehow - using a real pencil and writing the answers down helps to retain the information better than tapping buttons on a screen or using a stylus.

This really isn’t a wow worthy comment
What do you want?eschew the tech, kids straightbacked clutching a pencil only
Best approach is blended learning with tech and core writing skills etc combined

Thanks a lot!
May I ask what schools those are?
Sometimes it's hard to notice these things during the visits, although sometimes it's quite shocking (for me this was at Pembridge Hall).
Thank you!