DFE Laptops - long term plan now students are returning

[lmgtfy]

Good Morning everyone,

 

 

As soon as the children arrived back this week I was asked the question what are we doing with all the laptops that were handed out from the DFE shall we get them back in.

 

I said no leave them with the students there maybe a bubble lockdown or students that need to isolate etc. Alas students have still been bringing in laptops that they no longer want so was wondering what others schools have said or advised?

 

Really a lot of the early Geobook or Dynotech laptops are of such low spec there really isn't much we can do with them in school as a shared device so I'm in the mind set that they might as well keep them. The only laptops that are OK ish are the very last batch of Dell or HP ones but still they are low spec Celerons, 4GB or RAM etc.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Cheers

[Jcx500]

We are giving some laptops out to Support staff etc after we've re-imaged them, We are keeping a spare batch of them if we ever go back into remote learning.

[lmgtfy]

Thats a good idea, they would make semi decent staff laptops especially for home use, cheers

[creativemario]

Our secondary purchased a good number of Chromebooks from LGFL (which have finally reached us after a long voyage!).

We're planning to subsidise costs on these and give one to each FSM student - Any spare devices will be offered to parents at near cost.

 

After this, we can collect the DFE devices back in and redistribute to those who need them - If we have enough left over, there were talks of using some of them them to replace aging RM Ones running CloudReady, though I'm not sure how staff would react to 11" screens...

[mrhall]

We might have enough to make a set that staff could book to use with a class. We probably won't add them to our domain - but will need to find a way to make them log out of any office365 connections - but students could use internet and office365 online to work (perhaps still continue through teams).

 

At least we'll have newer laptops for home loans - maybe that is the best we can do...

[jthompson]

Some of our Chromebooks are going to stay with pupils indefinitely (based on need), but some will be recalled and put into service as new classroom trolley sets.

[steveg]

We are leaving ours with the children for now, all homework is being set online as we didn't want books etc going back and fourth. We are actually giving a few more out now to the children that have been in school the whole time but now need to do homework online.

[hardtailstar]

We probably wont be worried if they dont come back.

[Chaniel]

For now, we're not asking students to return them.

 

I'll push for disadvantaged students to keep theirs to help with homework/covid catch-up. The rest I will get re-deployed into Chromebook trolleys for use around the school.

[FragglePete]

We'll get ours back in soon; some have already started to comeback (no breakages so far!) but concentrate on Yr 11 and Yr 13 students first when their assessments, etc are done. Long term plan is to get them all back with the exception of a few. The Chromebooks will then make up the bulk of our 'laptop' devices for students from September in school. A very welcomed tech refresh on some of our kit generally.

 

Pete

[chazzy2501]

I may use the dynabooks as they're not terrible but the dell and geobooks toy books can burn in heck.

[Guest Guest]

We're putting our Geobooks and HPs into storage just incase.

 

We're using the Dell's for kids that struggle to write

[toffee_paul]

We have some coming back in and teachers complaining they had no space to store them. Told them nobody has asked them to store them anywhere, the advice hasn't changed and the devices need to stay at home with pupils in case of the need to isolate again. We have several occurrences of bubbles self-isolating BEFORE the latest national lockdown. If laptops all come back in it would be a logistical nightmare to sort out who's is who's. Head is happy for them to remain at home with pupils so that's more than ok with me!

[Linfit]

Not doing anything about ours (all Chromebooks, we are a Google school) until after Easter, when hopefully the situation has clarified a bit.

Plan is to ask for them back from some students, others will be allowed to keep them based on their needs.

Should get a few tolleys worth back we can use around school.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Not doing anything about ours (all Chromebooks, we are a Google school) until after Easter, when hopefully the situation has clarified a bit.

Plan is to ask for them back from some students, others will be allowed to keep them based on their needs.

Should get a few tolleys worth back we can use around school.

[Boredguy]

Next year we will assign some over to the Exam departments use since none of our current ones meet the requirement to last an exam duration without being plugged into the mains which is a no-no

[paulkerton]

We will ask for them back, and redistribute if we have to.

Ultimately, we need to backfill, as a lot of the ones we actually handed out were our own devices, as the DFE ones arrived far too slowly.

[Syman_a]

All ours came back, albeit one was a struggle as "Mum needs to keep it for her work"

I have put ours into a classroom set. The extra few will be held for children in isolation/shielding bubbles if needed.

[localzuk]

We will be collecting all ours in, the DfE ones, the ones provided by our opportunity area, and our own spares. We'll then be using about 250 of them as 1:1 devices for year 5 as part of our normal 1:1 rollout plans. The rest (about 250) will be distributed to families across our schools who don't have a device at home, or kept as spares.

[Sylv3r]

We are letting students keep them for now - we've identified a barrier for learning for certain students i.e. not having a device, to take it back from them is counter productive.

[Griff]

We already have our Chromebooks out on trolleys as bookable assets. The rest just being used to support SEND department. Its great timing because the Cyber Essentials cert are trying to get just condemned about 100 iPads lol.

[Sonic007]

We have said that if a student is back in school, then they hand the laptop back in.

 

I'm now using a set of 30 as a class set to replace our ageing iPads. Works perfect for children using Google Docs, Drive etc.

 

 

I was looking at giving some to staff but they are quite slow machines and I dont want to be dealing with the complaints.

[gpjt]

The plan is to let teaching staff have one each here as a stand alone with the caviate that should we need to use them again and if there is anymore home learning then they will be used and allocated to the students who need them.

To be fair we had another 12 arrive last week and they were the Dell ones, so pupils who need them still have them at home and some parents have just returned some without being asked.

 

Not intending to put them on our network as others have mentioned because of the spec of them.

 

Just got to write up some sort of staff agreement now!

Edited March 24, 2021 by gpjt

[DavR]

We had mostly Chromebooks, so we're calling those back in and should have enough to make up a classroom set next financial year (when I've got the money for a trolley).

 

I think there were some discussions in SLT about letting certain students keep them permanently, but we're a primary and don't expect any student to be doing schoolwork at home, so don't feel obligated to provide particularly.

[TriggerHappyUK]

We're not calling any of ours back. They would be very poor as a shared device. Build quality is good on the Dell and Acer (not so good on the Dynabook and HP), but they all have inferior specs. Wouldn't last five minutes with internet, Word, Powerpoint and Photoshop open on them.

 

Would prefer them not being on the network to be honest. Or having to support them.

 

Good for what they were intended for. Home learning. Students will still need something for their homework, or if they need to isolate. They can keep them for the full 6 years, or until they break / get sold

[toffee_paul]

Is it still the DfE's plan to discontinue use of their MDM for these devices in September?

 

It will be interesting so see if this gets extended or there will suddenly be hundreds of thousands of laptops with unfiltered Internet access