Buying ipads for a school

voixdeville · 4 March 2018 at 9:53AM

Does anyone know of any independent organizatuons i could contact for advice? Thanks

Enterprise_1701C · 4 March 2018 at 10:21AM

I don't know what to recommend to you, but I would certainly go for an Android tablet rather than Ipad.

What would I do in your situation?

I would write to the manufacturers. I have a Samsung that I find is good, other manufacturers are Acer, Huawei, Lenovo, Acer, Asus, Google, HTC and Archos, among others.

I would suggest emailing them individually, as well as Apple, asking for the best way to get a quote for 30 of their tablets, outlining your situation, and see what they come back with.

It also depends on what apps you want on the tablet, whether they are expecting the apple apps or will manage with ones available in the Google Play store (easily accessible on a PC to have a look in).

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with the hardware of the Ipad, but they charge twice the price they should because of the apple name.

Sorry, can't think of any independent organisations that could suggest anything to you.

Haylescom · 4 March 2018 at 11:13AM

Ipads are expensive but are so useful for newer aspects of the NC. You could always look at chromebooks as well. Suplies for schools are usually quite competitive, or TTS. As you have no IT support though, you may want to look into purchasing from a firm who offer tech support. How do you get by without one? Are you primary or secondary? Subject leader? There's a facebook group for primary computing subject leaders.

Double check with the LEA that they definitely don't have a supplier who can do you a discount through bulk purchases. Another option would be leasing- lots of schools do this now so they can just replace sets when they're outdated.

Make sure you get plenty of quotes to pass to the finance committee of the governors before you make that decision. Have you been told what your computing budget is? I'm assuming you need to get this done before the end of March and the new budgets are in place?

Haylescom · 4 March 2018 at 11:19AM

It's worth noting as well that, in primary schools at least, each teacher is a specific subject leader and as such is in charge of the delegated budget for that particular subject.

Valli · 4 March 2018 at 11:43AM

In addition to buying I pads we also bought a Mac, to administer the iPads and keep them upgraded, protective cases, a lockable trolley. We had to buy licenses for various apps, too, and subscription for various sites.

This would probably be outside the scope of a single subject budget anyway, but would come from a capital budget.

Why not talk to other schools in your cluster and start by getting in some IT support/advice?

DCFC79 · 4 March 2018 at 2:57PM

Yes a lockable trolley is a wise decision, just a thought (maybe your aware of it so apologies) but these (when I say these I mean the chargers and not the Ipads) would get PAT tested which may add an extra cost.

martindow · 4 March 2018 at 3:03PM

If you are in a primary school it could be worth contacting the secondary you feed into. The IT people there ought to be able to help and there may be some advantage in aligning the tablets you get to what they already use.

Savvy_Sue · 4 March 2018 at 5:17PM

You might get some advice from LASATech - scroll down to the tech bit.

FatVonD · 5 March 2018 at 3:00AM

Apple themselves heavily discount to educational establishments.

Comms69 · 5 March 2018 at 11:07AM

voixdeville wrote: »

Im not sure where to go for advice on this, the school itself hasnt got a clue and they have put me in charge of resolving the issue. Could anyone point me in the right direction please? Thanks

I suspect if you did this, the school would end up in court.

Buying ipads for a school

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