Google Chromebooks

Google Chromebooks for Students

At Kingsdown School we champion each and every student - something that means that we must ensure we are preparing all students for their futures, whatever that might look like. One of our greatest challenges in doing this is that we are currently preparing our students for jobs that don’t even exist yet, using technologies that haven’t been invented in order to solve problems that we haven’t even encountered yet. Current estimates suggest that our students will have between 10-14 different jobs by the time they are 38. In 1984, there were just 1,000 internet devices in the world, when our year 11s were born this has risen to 1 billion and today, this estimate is in excess of 31 billion. This year, across the world we will generate more data than in the previous 5,000 years.

We are highly committed to providing the best education possible for our students and to be agile enough for our students to respond to what the world throws at us to ensure uninterrupted learning.  We will provide access to resources that will stretch and challenge our students and to develop skills useful in employment and further education.

We have seen, from the recent lockdown, how crucial to learning it is for all students to have access to a device that allows them to easily, and quickly access the wealth of information and resources that Kingsdown students have access to when in school.

In order to support this, our ambition is for every student at Kingsdown School to have a Chromebook. With will start with our year 11 students in September and follow with years 7 and 10 in January 2021. All remaining cohorts will be introduced from September 2021. A Chromebook is a small and lightweight laptop which runs using a Google Chrome operating system.  The device will significantly enhance the learning experience for our students both in the classroom and at home.  It further supports individualised learning and feedback and comes with access to a vast range of high quality resources that will supplement, but not replace the normal high quality teaching that Kingsdown prides itself on delivering.

Each Chromebook is designed to last 8- 10 hours per charge so will last all day, and has a life expectancy of at least 5 years.

Please don’t worry, handwriting remains a very important and valuable skill and there will of course be plenty of opportunity to continue to perfect this. Students will also continue to read and use books and textbooks, we have a thriving library and continue to develop our reading programmes. 

We are committed to ensuring all students have access to a Chromebook and we have a variety of options to suit all situations. 

Our options range from buying the device outright to day loans.

Option A is to buy the Chromebook outright, the cost is a single payment of approx. £220, we include a FREE protective sleeve with this option.

Option B is payment by instalments at approx £20 per month over 12 months which includes the cost of the Chromebook, a protective sleeve and the instalment admin fees charged by Parentpay, the total cost is approx £240

For our Y11 students, the cost will be approx. £30 per month over 8 months due to their limited remaining time left at the school.

With options A and B, once your child has completed year 11, the IT team will remove their management software and you will keep the Chromebook as it is your purchased device. For all other options, once your child has completed year 11 the device will be returned to school as the device is owned by the school.

Purchasing the device means you get a high quality Chromebook for an unbelievable price ready for use for College and beyond!

Option C is to rent the device during term time.  You will pay approx £110 deposit upfront, and rent of approx £22 will be taken from the deposit each year, the devices must be handed in during the summer holidays then reissued.

Option D is our no cost option – the day loan, students will sign out a Chromebook at the beginning of the day and return it at the end of the day.

The final option is to use your own device, if you already have your own Chromebook you are permitted to use this at school and we can add the Google Licence to the device to enable you to access the full range of educational services. 

The Chromebooks are fully supported by our in house IT Team of experts. To offer you peace of mind, each device is installed with appropriate Web filtering and monitoring software, and it can be locked and located as required.
 
We will update with more detailed information about the Chromebooks as the rollout begins from September, but hope you are as excited as we are about this innovative and fresh way of learning.

A video announcement of this plan can be found here.

We have asked our current year 10 student to complete the survey here to indicate their preference for the above options. We ask that this is completed before Monday 27th July 2020.

General specifications of school issued Chromebooks

While details are subject to change, we are generally looking at chromebooks with the following specifications:

Dell Chromebook 3100
• Intel Celeron N4020 processor
• 11” non-touch screen
• 4GB Ram, 16GB Storage (students will be using their school Google GSuite account with unlimited cloud storage).
• This model chromebook will be supported by Google with updates till June 2026.
• A soft protective case to keep the Chromebook in.

To help gauge value for money, at the time of writing, from the Dell website consumers can purchase that base model laptop themselves for approx. £400 inc VAT.