new yr 7s - laptop or tablets necessary? Which?

[whickles]

Our 1st is off to yr 7 in sept. What do secondary children "need" these days in terms of access to laptop/pc/tablets?

Does handwritten vs typed homework vary by school? Or is it all typed these days?

Do homeworks never/sometimes/always require internet research? At what stage do these things become genuinely necessary? Do they take them into school?

What would you say is the best option:
-sporadic access to the main pc and laptop, both of which get used a lot by us as we work from home / and laptop gets taken away a lot.
-cheapish tablet and get a plug in keyboard ( a diy MS Surface!!), but the screen would be quite small

• save up for cheap laptop? maybe a 2nd hand one?
• an extra desktop style pc, but not sure where it would go?

What have you found is actually more useful and less useful? And money is tight, so looking for a cost effective solution!

YY to everything Isthiscorrect said. We bought one of those mini metal tags (for a pet's collar) engraved with DS1's full name and put that on a split ring (keyring) with the memory stick & his locker key.

He set up a folder for each subject and saves each file in the correct subject folder using the date in this format: 2013-06-18, so all homework is saved in date order.

We back it up once a week.

Still working on persuading him to use headers & footers, although he did use numbered footnotes correctly for one History essay!

Just to add that he does include an abbreviated title in the file name, but the date comes first, e.g. 2013-06-18 Gunpowder Plot.

If he submits homework by email (rare) it has to include his name in the file name, for the teacher's sake!

Laptop deffo. Also check which os school has, boy in ds year was bought a beaut macair at 2k+ but wasn't compatible so had to do all his e-h/w in the library after school for a year

I agree about operating systems. Schools generally use Microsoft. OH has Linux and although Open Office can read Microsoft documents sometimes it reformats the work.

It's the norm to send secondary age children to private schools - or at least it is here in Brisbane.