A school which splashed out £500,000 to provide iPads to each of its 1,200 pupils a year ago has admitted that half of the costly tablets are broken.
Honywood Community Science School in Coggeshall, Essex, allowed children to take the device outside the classroom, playground and street and home at evenings and weekends.
It had been warned that allowing pupils to take the expensive tablets out of the classrooms might not have been the best idea in the world because children might not look after them properly.
Perhaps, not unsurprisingly, it has been revealed that:
- after just one year, more than four in ten of the iPads had been sent for repair, after being knocked, dropped or scratched
- 489 of the iPad2 tablets had to be replaced after being found to be beyond repair
- about a fifth of those sent for repair – 112 – had to be sent back more than once
- pupils said in some of the younger classes, around half the class had broken their tablet at least once, and some as many as three times.
According to the Daily Mail: “The school argues that since introducing the devices, it has seen improvements in pupil discipline, attendance, and exam results.
“Honywood, which gained academy status last year, giving it greater control over its budget, gave out the tablets last September, at an estimated cost of £500,000, or £400 per iPad. Parents were asked only to pay £50 towards insuring the device.”
Headteacher Simon Mason said: “The breakage rate resulted from using a recommended case which was insufficiently robust. Since replacing cases this year, breakage has fallen to 1.2 per cent.
“Exam results at the end of our first year of using tablets were the highest in the school’s 48-year history.
“Attendance has risen and we’ve seen our lowest rate of fixed-term exclusions for ten years.”
Via: Daily Mail
