Year 4 iPad Scheme

Dear parents/carers,

Please find attached, information regarding the proposed roll out of our iPad scheme across Year 4.  In a nutshell, you would contribute to your child having their own iPad to use in school and to bring home every day. Once the leasing term is complete, you then own the iPad.

As a school, we have not entered into this lightly and after three years of research into the use of iPads in primary education, we are excited that we are at the point of being able to introduce iPads on a one to one basis, from the spring term.  As mentioned previously, this will have to come at a cost to parents, we are currently working behind the scenes to get this as low as possible. In the meantime, hopefully we will be able to demonstrate the additional impact for your children.

Having had experience of the 1:1 scheme with a previous school, I am confident that we are at the right time to introduce it to Parkgate.  Having completed an Education Degree with Technology as the catalyst, my thoughts have always been that schools are way behind what the children can already do.  We should be the educators and at the cutting end of technology, yet children already have access to devices and consoles, can use them well and in many cases have been far ahead of teachers. Until now.

Many people will have reservations about iPad use in school.  These will range from ‘Are the children learning or playing?’, ‘What would be the impact on the standards?’, ‘How will creativity be affected?’

We are not the first, and certainly won’t be the last, school to embark on this scheme. There are many primary schools who are already using this technology across the whole primary age range, and have been for many years. What we notice is that not only is there far more engagement, excitement and enhanced learning opportunities but that it also transforms teaching.

Using the iPads means that the teacher is in instant, and constant, control of learning by being able to lock devices when speaking, being able to see each child’s work on the teacher device so that misconceptions are picked up immediately, being able to tailor teaching points to individuals, share good examples across the class and the children can ‘magpie’ ideas from each other using sharing apps to name but a few.

We have already trialed use across Year 4, we actually started in lockdown and are confident that the teaching team are ready to deliver an outstanding curriculum led by technology. The traditional Handwriting practice will still take place, spelling and tables will still be taught but with the added benefit of learning being personalised to cater for individual needs. The iPad is not a substitute for exercise books but enables the children to have immediate access to such a great wealth of teaching materials.

We feel we are only scratching the surface of what can be achieved and it is really invigorating our teaching and learning.  The hope is that your children are the first of many, many years of enhanced learning.

As a school, we want to be at the forefront of education to ensure we offer a truly memorable experience, creating success stories for all our children whatever their learning needs, giving them the best possible start to life.  We hope that you are in a position to support our vision.

In order to demonstrate how the iPads are utilised, over the next 3 weeks we are going to send some of our older iPads home with 10 children from each class.  The children will be able to access, and continue with, the learning that they have been completing in class.  Hopefully, you will see the added impact that the device will have with fluid transition between school and home.

There will be a short guide to allow you to connect the iPad to your internet at home.  Some of the apps will be able to be used without internet access.

We will be sending lots more information home in the coming weeks to allow you to further understand how the scheme works.

If you have any questions in the meantime please do email us at info@parkgate.coventry.sch.uk

Many thanks for your continued support.

Mr Henley

Deputy Headteacher