Chromebooks
As we look to continually improve and update our IT equipment in order to support learning across the curriculum, we have taken the decision to begin the transition from our aging netbooks and iPads to Chromebooks.
Chromebooks will be introduced to Years 4 and 5 from September 2017 with a view to continuing their use into Year 6 at the same time as introducing them to Year 3 in September 2018.
In order to provide your child with a Chromebook login and provide access to G Suite for Education, we request your permission, this is due to the fact that, on top of access to Google Classroom, Contacts, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Keep, Drive and Drawings, we will be allowing access to the additional Google services of Google Maps and Youtube* for which we are required to seek parental consent.
All G Suite and Chromebook activity will be in line with both our ICT Policy and Safer Internet Use Policy.
Without parental consent, your child will not be able to access the Chromebooks or G Suite for Education package and there will be an impact to your child’s access to IT equipment as Chromebooks replace the older devices in our school.
We are satisfied that G Suite for Education complies with the Data Protection Act. For more information on how Google uses and handles data, please see their self-certification statement.
If you require any further information, please direct your questions to your child's teacher or Mr Winstanley.
*Youtube access is not currently enabled as we are working to allow access safely and safeguard against inappropriate content. We will not enable Youtube until we are satisfied that it is filtered appropriately, in line with our safe internet use policy.
What are Chromebooks?
Chromebooks are essentially laptops. The main difference is that they run Chrome OS rather than Windows.
Chrome OS is geared towards using the internet. It is based on the Chrome web browser that you have probably used at home.
A Chromebook can boot up in around seven seconds and once signed in you are already signed into Google's services and ready to go.
We will be using G Suite for Education in place of Microsoft's Office suite of software.
What is G Suite?
G Suite for Education is a package of web-based services that provide a similar range of tools to Microsoft's Office suite.
Due to the online nature of G Suite, collaboration on documents is a simple process and work saves almost instantly, stored safely in the cloud.
Work can be automatically shared with teachers and feedback can be given whilst children continue working.