Page 1 of Secondary School Laptops

Some of you may have already become aware that my eldest son starts at Secondary School this August.

One of the things that his new school are really giving a hard sell on is their laptop scheme, which I do not feel happy about, so I thought I`d run it past you lot and see what you think.

Their aim is for every pupil to have the same type of laptop with the same software and spec. They want all parents to sign a deal whereby you pay £15 a month for 3 years (Total £540) for a Toshiba laptop with the following spec (this is all I have been given so far): Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, three years insurance and warranty, desktop/anti-virus/educational software, case, on-site technical support.

During these three years as you pay for it, you do not have administrators rights, you cannot load ANY other software onto it (inc your own preferred anti-virus/spyware progs), you cannot use it for any kind of gaming etc, and if it develops a virus or a fault, you are in the hands of their technical support team, as you cannot get it repaired yourself.

Now, I have spoken to loads of parents who have already joined this scheme, and they have all been unhappy as their laptop has ended up with viruses onboard (it comes preloaded with Norton, which does not get the job done), and despite making umpteen calls (all at premium rate I might add), they find themselves passed from pillar to post as technical, warranty and insurance departments all say it is down to someone else to sort out. This results in the laptop being out of order for weeks at a time. This is not even to mention the trouble they have trying to get the laptop connected to a printer or the internet at home (doing this without administrators rights involves phonecalls to technical support and being given passwords which then have to be changed in school the next day to prevent you accessing those sections again at a later date)

Considering we have 2 PCs at home, which my son has full access to, and I am perfectly prepared to buy him his own laptop (not through the school) if they convince me that he needs one, I fail to see why I should be interested in this scheme.

If I own the thing, and it goes wrong, I can either fix it myself or go and see the local guy who fixes PCs. This is far easier and quicker than the school`s system.

Do any of you have kids at a school running a similar scheme, or have any comments about the sound of all this?

£15 pm & you can`t maintain it yourself ??????

nah, firstly, it`s overpriced, a core2duo laptop can be had for around £350 at "reasonable" spec, secondly, being railroaded into norton is enough to not join the scheme (imo ;) )

kids Do need laptops for secondray school these days, & imo thats a good thing, if i had access to them my school life would have been very different, i wasn`t even allowed a typwriter (could type fine, but my writing is awfull,,, due to dyslexia) i`m sure i`ll need to get my son one in the next couple of years, & i hope it`ll help him as much as it "would" have helped me :) the other main upside is that all your school work is right there all the time, & you can refere to it at home whilst doing homework etc, & of course, thats tied to the Big downside, if you don`t backup daily, & it fails/gets stolen, you could be right up s*** creek....


hope this helps..

An IT teacher I know really dislikes this scheme in principle, however, it does mean that there is one standard configuration, one lot of network settings, one lot of priter settings and so on and so forth which makes life for the teachers a lot easier.

The upshot is, the parents feel like they should own this, frankly, overpriced laptop but it does make teachers and your sons life easier by providing a standard platform to work from, that they know works with everything. If they had to support various configurations, the support would probably be even worse.

The further reaching issues, to be honest, are `is it right that schools are becoming microsoft training camps?`, which is even further seen by these restrictive configurations.

So, soapbox, I would grudgingly buy the school laptop, but make sure he learns about other the aspects of computers at home.

Both my kids (11 and 9) are great with computers. I started them with educational software before they started school.

They can both make full use of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc, copy or save files to external USB devices, burn data discs, send emails with attachments, use hotmail and MSN, etc etc and as they have been shown various internet explorer packages, they prefer Firefox to IE.

Just had a call from another mum who went last night. Apparently the school have been holding 30 minute information sessions about this scheme each day this week, bu I have not received any info about it. I`ve just left a message on the admissions officer`s answerphone to see if they have any sessions on today. Might get a few questions answered.

She said that they explained at the session she went to that if you own your own laptop, it will not be insured on the school grounds, and also they emphasised the compatibility problems with their network and equipment.

Really hope I can get to one of those sessions this afternoon, if I am not too late.

As I say, its a racket, but it will make your life a lot easier in the log run.

I would really resent this, though, especially if I had a couple of kids in secondary school.

They should be able to sort out the compatibility I mean basically the only effort is the network settings, just ask for a copy of them or when another kid gets their laptop just copy the configuration settings. What other equipment is there apart from the printer and internet again run on the network.

As they a microsoft based I assume all the main progs are backward compatible.

As for insurance just get your homes insurance extended or do what I did when I was a student pay £30 for a year to cover a few items separately mine where mobile, camera and laptop. Make sure it includes accidental damage in case something gets spilled onto it not just theft.

Getting paid from a school is like getting blood from a stone anyway not worth it imho.

If it was absolutely critical to the childs education, the school should supply it themselves.

I managed through school without a laptop, as I`m sure did everyone else here. I appreciate things have moved on over the years, but is it really necessary? Most people have computers at home anyway. Seems like a bit of a con to me.

this is unscrupulous but other unscrupulous things get by here ;)

buy you son the latop you think is adequate.
"borrow" a friend`s laptop
make an image
put 2 partitions on your son`s
install the image on partition 1, and your own OS on partition 2

I know my cousin uses their family pc for homework etc, she can access her school`s network to upload/download homework etc She also has a usb flash drive for transferring files.

I had no idea that pen and paper were banned in school now! ;)

If a Laptop is a requirement for education these days, the schools should pay for them!




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This item was edited on Thursday, 10th July 2008, 12:40

This stinks, it smacks of just the sort of horrible American style infiltration and exploitation of schools that big companies get away with on the other side of the pond.

As said above, the amount you are paying is ridiculous for the spec. I`m sure you could buy cheaper yourself, AND get it insured against damage or theft.

Having Norton forced upon you makes it worse (I`d rather use the free Avira Antivirus any day), and the inability to install anything you like onto it, and not having Admin access is the icing on the very bitter cake.

I`d rather get one myself (most places do pretty decent credit deals), insure it myself, and have Admin access myself, even if I don`t let my kid have Admin.


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