Do your primary schools issue Chromebooks/other devices?

[KitsPoint]

My kids’ primary has recently announced a plan to start introducing Chromebooks.

I’m really saddened by this as kids should be getting less screen time, not more!!😔 I can see it might be convenient but handwriting and concentration are bound to suffer. I also fear it will lead to cuts of other things eg art/science experiments. The school struggles to fund equipment now, by the time they’ve blown the budget on Chromebooks they’ll be nothing left.

Am interested to hear experiences of people whose primary schools are using devices - is it as bad as I fear? Maybe parents like it if it gives them an easy life.

thanks

Erm. Yes. Computing and IT fundamental part of the curriculum. Our school has Chromebooks and iPads. I'd be pretty concerned if a school DIDN'T have any IT. What have they been using to date?

They have one set for the whole school and they are shared out.

Obviously (!) they’ve been teaching ICT and have computers for that.

However, there’s a world of difference between that and issuing every child with his/her own Chromebook and using them routinely in most lessons/setting homework to be done on them. Which is what is now being suggested.

Issue?? No we don’t give each kid a laptop.
We do, however, have a class set of laptops and a class set of iPads.
The kids have 1 IT lesson for about an hour a week. They then might have approximately 1 hour of other screen based activities in a week. Some weeks it will be a bit more, some weeks will be none.
IT is a part of the curriculum. These machines are a fundamental part of our society. All kids should be given some access and taught how to use one.

Ours don't have them full time.

Homework is set on them and submitted from Y5. All secondary homework is via Google classroom so it's part of the planned transition to school.

My DC's school issues a chromebook for each child. It's the only thing I don't like about the school, and it's for two reasons:

1. We have very little control over it. The school's filter is installed and I'm sure it's very good, so I'm not overly concerned about inappropiate material, but there's no way for us to install time limits on it the way we have on our own devices. Yes, it just means we have to parent, I know. And we do. But it's another source of friction which frankly I could do without. And it's more screentime doing things that wouldn't otherwise require a screen, so even if the activity is wholesome (writing stories etc), the screen aspect means more stimulation, more blue light in the evenings, etc

2. Lots of the DC's homework and learning is done via the chromebook. Seneca for science, Mathswatch for maths, Sentencebuilder for Spanish. And I can see the advantages: teachers can see what has been done and when, with much more data, and many of these platforms are dynamic and taylor the questions so that each pupil gets more practice on their weak areas, less on their strong ones. But, I can't shake the feeling (and I'm sure there's research to back this up, although I don't have time to look it up now) that clicking on numbers/words with a mouse doesn't activate the same neural pathways as writing does. I just don't think children learn as effectively via screens as they do with the various manifestations of pen and paper - flashcards, mind maps, blurting, past papers etc.