Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
The staffroom

Whether you're a permanent teacher, supply teacher or student teacher, you'll find others in the same situation on our Staffroom forum.

Original poster

Teacher laptops

39 replies

ethelredtheunsteady · 18/12/2020 21:32

Were staff in secondary schools normally issued with laptops before Covid? My daughter's school was fundraising for staff laptops for the remote teaching, but if it's not a normal thing why is it not covered by the extra money the Government said schools could claim for Covid expenses? There was lots in the news about student laptops, but I didn't see much about teacher laptops, so I wonder if most of the teachers had one anyway?

OP posts:
BackforGood · 18/12/2020 23:58

IME teachers have all had school laptops for years, however they would usually be the cheapest / lowest grade ones, so possibly there were issues with the technology for teaching on-line ??
I'm not in school anymore, but still publicly funded, and my laptop runs Sooooooooooo slowly, and hasn't got a camera, and can't cope with Teams, etc,etc,etc.
I'm only guessing - though seems odd to be fundraising for it (and how were they fundraising during the lockdown ??)

noelgiraffe · 19/12/2020 00:16

extra money the Government said schools could claim for Covid expenses?

What extra money?

I’ve not got a school laptop. I used my own laptop over lockdown for live lessons etc.

TheEchtMeaningofChristmas · 19/12/2020 02:31

A point I banged on about during lockdown, like a shithouse door in a gale was that parents needed to understand that anything they were getting online would most likely be funded by the teacher's own money to provide laptops, their own broadband, etc.

At no point was there a rush of MN teachers to say they were supplied with laptops.

Hercwasonasnowball · 19/12/2020 06:31

No laptops provided here. Desktops in school only. It is assumed teachers have their own.

The state system is propped up on teachers providing their own tech.

MrsChristmasHamlet · 19/12/2020 10:31

All teaching and student supporting staff at my school have school laptops, and trainees get one too. But we're in a minority of schools. No rooms or offices have desktops - even the office staff have laptops and docking stations.

Malbecfan · 19/12/2020 11:44

We were all given new laptops back in June 2019. We started using Teams in September 2019 and had INSET in January this year - just as well really! We had 30 spares which were kept in the library and in the first lockdown, used some for key worker/vulnerable to access remote learning and then lent the rest to FSM/PPG kids.

In May/June the government announced that schools would be getting laptops for disadvantaged kids. We waited and were then told that as we had 280 (no idea where that number came from as there are around 80 staff plus 30 library ones) we had plenty. Yes, we received precisely zero in the much-heralded "give-away". Our school & PTA started fund-raising and now every kid has a laptop and we have a blended curriculum.

As a music teacher, whilst my laptop is shiny & easy to carry, a MacBook suits my needs so much better because I use GarageBand & Sibelius. I cannot have Sibelius installed on my school machine for some random reason. Fine. All music whether printed or MP3/4 is done on my personal MacBook. I own the copyright, I allow the school to use it for free but if they ever piss me off, it goes with me. I can prove its provenance. Macs seem to last much better too; the old one is 11 years old and still going strong, but as a thank you for living here during the pandemic, my dad treated me to a new one this year.

cabbageking · 19/12/2020 13:53

We have school laptops from several years ago.
Covid expenses is limited to items you would not normally purchase like screens etc. Think the limit was £3000 for the first term.
The teachers would surely need the laptops asap to function rather waiting for fundraising to kick in?

SantaAssociationRepresentitve · 19/12/2020 16:10

We all got laptops September 2020. However at the start of lockdown staff were given choice of using own kit or having a school laptop

winechateauxjoy · 19/12/2020 16:19

No, I have never been given a laptop or any other IT equipment by the school to use at home. Over the years I have spent £1000s on laptops, printers, software and ink. As lockdown was announced back in March I rushed to Currys and bought the only laptop they had - cost £650 - because I knew there was no way my old laptop would cope with online leaning platforms.

We were so desperate to get laptops to students who needed them that our IT dept were able to repurpose some of the staff's old laptops (bought with their own money) for the students. We really struggled to get equipment to our students.

Danglingmod · 19/12/2020 16:42

Nope. No school I have ever worked in has given teachers laptops. We buy and replace our own.

reefedsail · 19/12/2020 18:22

All teachers at my school (provincial primary school) have laptops and ipads. I'm SLT so I have nice high-spec ones. Grin Most TAs also have a laptop and access to a classroom ipad.

CarrieBlue · 19/12/2020 18:42

I use my own laptop, my DH uses his own desktop, my DS uses DHs old desktop and DD uses my tablet. We all use our printer which we didn’t have ink for for most of lockdown 1.

My school has about 8 laptops that are in constant use and have to be booked. We have a desktop in most classrooms and about twelve extra desktops. School has about 225 students.

GleamingBaubles · 19/12/2020 18:46

No school I have ever worked in gave out teacher devices/laptops.
My own ancient one broke down in lockdown #1 and i had to do all my remote teaching from my phone and the kids iPad.
Have managed to blah a second hand Chromebook for now (I'm part time and only earn £12000 pa before tax etc).

Piggyinblankets · 19/12/2020 19:05

I ahve a school laptop. It is a 10 year old beast of a thing and a new bit of plastic falls off it every day. It is better than the new ones though that were given out two years ago with no mics or webcams. Whoops.

TheHollyandtheIvyyyyy · 19/12/2020 19:13

No laptops at my school. I had to buy a new one.

MrsChristmasHamlet · 19/12/2020 19:14

If you had to buy equipment to work from home, you are entitled to claim it back against your tax liability.

Timeturnerplease · 19/12/2020 19:56

I had to replace my MacBook after first lockdown as it was over a decade old and couldn’t cope with running Zoom and Teams. £1000 of my own money.

We are a small village primary. Desktops provided in classrooms for teachers to use, can borrow school netbooks if needed but they are old and slow, with missing keys. Most of our iPads were lent out to children March-August, as a surprising number of families in our wealthy, middle class area don’t have one device per child....think this is more of a principle thing (ie restricting screen time) than a lack of funds though.

I don’t know of any schools that provide teacher laptops that run well enough to cope with online learning etc. Maybe academies?

Subordinateclause · 19/12/2020 20:52

I've been really surprised over the past year or so to learn teacher laptops in secondary are so rare. I've always been provided with one in primary and don't know any (primary) teachers who aren't.

Danglingmod · 19/12/2020 20:59

There was a fund about? 15 years ago called "laptops for teachers" when having your own IT was more rare. Since then, I think it's considered normal for everyone to own their own IT and therefore use it for work.

I know a lot of teachers in a lot of schools and the only ones who have laptops provided are (some) primary.

thebookeatinggirl · 20/12/2020 09:59

My small primary, deprived area, very stretched budget, has ancient desktops in classrooms and in the ICT suite. Head and 2 x SLT have laptops, but not class teachers. It was expected that we used our own tech at home to teach during lockdown. One teacher had to do it all on her iPhone.

rosesinmygarden · 20/12/2020 14:11

I've been a teacher for 18 years. I've never had a school laptop or computer which would have been good enough to run teams etc.
I don't currently work in a school but as a private tutor. I had to spend around £700 this year on new tech so that I could teach online. No way would most schools have that budget per teacher.

This is part of the reason some schools' online offering was so dire. Not because the teachers were lazy....

flumposie · 20/12/2020 15:11

No. I had to buy one the weekend before lockdown started. Then share it with my daughter.

Subordinateclause · 20/12/2020 16:15

I'm a still flabbergasted by this. I work part time and am the breadwinner (for legitimate reasons I won't go into!). I genuinely couldn't have afforded to buy myself a laptop if I had been expected to. The ridiculous thing is it wouldn't cost a school anywhere near what individual teachers are having to pay because they would get bulk deals, in the same way when a school gets a set of iPads they don't pay anything like retail price.

MitziK · 20/12/2020 19:28

My last school was using the ones that came out around the same time as the Labour government funded a laptop for children on FSM. You could choose between a Toshiba with a space bar or one with an enter key by the time they'd been used by kids for twelve years and could only have one for an hour during school time (or longer if it was for an evening function).

The entire GCSE Music Performance component was dependent upon my personal laptop working/not being broken or stolen after IT came in during the middle of a recording to say they needed the school one back. It packed up permanently ten days after I'd burned the recordings to disk, as there weren't any computers on site with the capability that were accessible to staff. The integrity of the composition work would have been awkward to explain as well (A personal SSD), although at least when it disappeared off the network three times and couldn't be found on the backup, nobody really asked too many questions about how/why I managed to produce it from nowhere.

This school has spent their last money on laptops for FSM children. There were no spare ones for any staff even beforehand, so even admin on the lowest wages had to provide their own technology to work from home.

The idea of equipment being provided is a novel one for me.

EachDubh · 21/12/2020 01:07

Never had any equipment from school. Provided lots but that's how schools in this country survive, staff use their own money and equipment to pkug the holes.