School issue laptops/tablets - does your school do this?

[Thesquaregiraffe]

I know of a couple of schools that issue students with “school issue” iPads. But this is not the norm. My DS school doesn’t do this. (Incidentally, these are state schools and not private).

In parents evening it was suggested that to help my DS with the speed of his handwriting he could use a laptop (or specifically a Chromebook). DS doesn’t want one as that will instantly make him “that kid”.

But it did make me wonder why schools don’t offer laptops/tablets to all students more often. Obviously I realise there are the problems of cost, what happens if it breaks, gets lost etc. But I couldn’t help but think that schools should be encouraging more use of technology as a rule of thumb and not just to be used in the Computing classes, as a special lesson or, as in my DS case, because of struggles to keep up when having to write a lot.

Unlike when I was at school, technology is getting harder to ignore and live without and I can’t help but think we’re almost setting up our young people with failure because they’re not exposed to what would be classed as workplace norms in school.

So, I was just wondering how normal (or not normal) it is that secondary schools issue or request all students to have tech to take into class?

DD has had a laptop since Y6 (in practice she now has an iPad with keyboard and e-pen as it's better and lighter weight - and cheaper), but we provided it for her at my expense. She is severely dyslexic and has hypermobile finger joints and it was recommended she learn to touch type and move to a laptop for everything by the Ed Psych.

School have some laptops available, but they have to be signed in and out on a daily basis, which is then a faff in terms of not always having the same device, having to ensure everything is stored on cloud and needed another device for home.

School do provide them for exams for those who have access arrangements detailing laptop use.

DD did find it made her stick out and lots of 'Miss, why has X got tech, it's not fair' at the start, and people asking her why she has a laptop. Plus a few teachers who didn't seem to understand why she had one and wasn't using pen and paper... sigh. Luckily she's quite a gobby kid and so not incapable of standing up for herself - but I know a lot of others who should be using one and won't because they stand out.

Would make life a lot easier if it became the norm for students to use laptops rather than paper. I only know of private schools that are moving in that direction though.

My DC were educated in the US and their school district was the first in the country to go to an electronically based curriculum in about 2011. Kindergarten were issued with notebooks, 1st and 2nd grade were issued with Chromebooks, 3rd - 12th grade had laptops.

The children would go into school a few days before the start of the school year and be issued with their electronics. We had to pay $35 for insurance for them each year. There was a record of who had been issued which device. There was IT support at each school to deal with repairs and issuing 'loaners' if a device was out for repair. The devices and all their accessories had to be returned at the end of the school year and were wiped prior to re-issue the following year. The laptops were in service for three years before being replaced.

The school district had an arrangement with an internet provider to help parents get cheap internet access if they couldn't afford it. School buses had WiFi if their journeys were longer than one hour.

There was a fairly strict filter so the laptops couldn't be used for anything unsavory. There was a fail when my DC were in fifth grade and learning about the excretory system. The children typed in something and were suddenly confronted with a video of a man urinating. The children were all 'EWWWWW' and the teacher was rushing around the room crying 'I'm going to get fired, I'm going to get fired'.

The curriculum and assignments were handled electronically with in person teaching in the classroom - so the teacher would teach in person, but then the children would switch to their laptops to see and work on classroom assignments and then homework assignments. It was done using Pearson and XCel (I think).

Some of the advantages were that my DC were able to skip forward in Maths and when they had completed their fifth grade work moved on to sixth grade on their own. If they were ill they could continue with classroom and homework assignments at home. My DC who has EDS and dyspraxia was able to type all their work. The textbooks were online too which they seemed happy with and meant they weren't lugging great heavy books all over the place and schools didn't have to keep buying textbooks.

Some of the disadvantages were occasional glitches like the DC being taught all about weather and clouds in science and then at the end of the module the school district sent a test on volcanoes and earthquakes. Nobody was sure who set up the French exams but they clearly didn't know French because it was full of spelling errors and marked students correct answers as wrong. The laptops did nothing for posture with students hunched over their desks.

In ds' school, years 7-11 use school chrome books that are secured to the desks when in school.

Years 12 & 13 use windows personal laptops that we provide ourselves.

Since Covid, all homework has been provided and submitted by MS Teams, to access from home, so DS has been fluent in Word, Excel and Powerpoint since he was 11 .

All our students have laptops (state) but they have to pay, with some pupil premium funding available.
We generally use a combination of books and laptops partly because they have to hand write exams for now anyway and partly because there's a memory benefit to handwriting, and to limit screen time
They probably use laptops at least a bit in most lessons though. We control the software installed

You have answered your own question. Schools do not have the funds to provide the equipment and to maintain and replace broken or vandalised equipment.

I think the opposite: there are way too many screens in life and schools should be focusing on reading books (rather than books on screens interrupted by AI questions) and use textbooks (rather than Google).

Every pupil at either primary or secondary has either an iPad or a Chromebook in my local area (in Scotland). All state schools, I’ve no idea about private.
There’s online classrooms for each subject and homework is done on them.
I didn’t have to pay anything, just sign an agreement to say it would be looked after. I think it came in about 4 years ago.

Ds was given permission to use a laptop in all school lessons and exams in year 10 (I think).
We did provide the laptop because it sped it up a bit (otherwise he was effectively waiting for funding, and as we could provide him one it seemed sensible both from getting him used to it and that then someone who couldn't afford one would get the school one).

He once has had hassle from it. He went up 4 grades between two history tests, and the teacher (a little lacking in tact) made a bit of a thing of how well he'd done.
Teacher phoned us to tell us what happened.
The other students were (fairly naturally) saying it wasn't fair.
So ds stood up and said "I have ASD, which is why I get to use a laptop" (not strictly true but never mind) "I don't think it's catching, but come and have a hug and we can see if it is."
Apparently nothing was said after that. 🤣

Tbf I think there's enough around the school using laptops that it isn't a major issue. There are some who can, and most who can't.

Another local school issues everyone with laptops/tablets/not sure what currently. Firstly, it's actually really expensive. I think it's about £30 a month (and that's 12 months a year not just term time). They say "just what you can afford" but parents do feel pressured to pay.
You are not allowed to use your own one under any circumstance.
If it goes wrong, it is repaired, but it may take weeks, and there's nothing you can do except wait.

And they discovered a few years ago that because they use screens all the time in lessons, the kids really struggled when it came to exams because they weren't used to using pen and paper. So they now only use them in years 7-9. But this then means that often they're not realising until too late in year 11 for those who do need them for exams because it's not as noticeable initially when they all go to pen and paper, and only when they're not picking up as others are.

Because they're expensive, they break, kids forget them, but not only that, schools don't have the infrastructure for them to work properly. Some schools don't even have wifi.

In my school we have a set of chrome books that you can book for a class, but you can't actually get a class logged into them all at the same time because the wifi can't cope.

Glasgow handed out iPads to all pupils, and now 10,000 of them have gone missing. https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/scottish-news/24676639.glasgow-pupils-told-no-prom-unless-return-council-ipads/

Part of not issuing is because students can rely on tech for exams. Some students are entitled to a laptop for exams, not all. The majority are not, and so have to be used to writing extensively onto paper. This will perhaps change over time given tech advances... but then the ability to write coherently and confidently on paper may be lost?
Most of this comes down to cost. Most state school are in a deficit and cannot afford staff/heating/basic equipment, never mind laptops for all! Then there is the safeguarding aspect - my school lent some laptops during lockdown and they were returned with all sorts of v v questionable search history, lots of 11-16 year olds seem to think searching up porn on school property appropriate and untraceable!
More problems than positives I think!

Sorry, first sentence should read 'part of not issuing laptops is because students CAN'T rely on tech for exams'

Long day!!

We have been a 1:1 device school ( standard state comp) for about 12/13 years now.
It works really well, and gave our kids a massive advantage during covid as we switched to online teaching quickly and easily ( though i don’t enjoy that aspect)
Homework is at the discretion of the teacher as to whether it is electronic or on paper ( we do still push writing as most kids will need to write in exams). It is particularly useful for providing all students with great notes, we basically upload all our ppts and documents for them to use for revision.
It’s amazing for whole class quizzing, at any point in the lesson, and you get immediate colour coded data at individual question and student level so can then really easily address areas of misunderstanding.
If kids forget theirs we give them a loan device for the day.
Saves a lot of money on not having computer suites, and photocopying.
Downsides : occasionally the wifi is dodgy, or one of the apps we use crashes. It can be expensive for parents not on FSM, but it is only a suggested contribution and not enforced.

State comprehensive here, all kids have their own Chromebook paid for by parents. It’s compulsory though pupil premium kids get for free. School IT set up network/repair etc as needed. So it is very possible and pretty widespread in local schools here.

My DC's state secondary school requires all students to have a Chromebook sourced through their supplier. Parents buy through the supplier's website, the Chromebooks get sent to the school and the school sets up the logins and security. There are interest-free payment plans available but it's still out of reach of many parents. We're in a very deprived catchment. The school quietly provides Chromebooks (same supplier, same spec) to students on Pupil Premium or whose parents ask for help.

All homework is set on Google Classroom and they use the Chromebooks a lot in class. DS' is looking a bit worn and torn now he's midway through Year 10 but fingers crossed it will last him through GCSEs.