Today I took a really lovely call from a member of the public who has a two year old laptop that they aren't using.  Although she doesn't have any pupils at Abbotswood, she had seen the news and wanted to make sure that she could contribute to helping children to continue with their education. Whilst we are hopeful that the government will fulfil their promise to deliver additional devices over the next couple of weeks, we have so many families who are in desperate need of additional technology.

Laptops and Chromebooks are too expensive for some of our families to purchase. Some have devices, but they are either out of date, or do not have the functionality that they need to continue with remote learning. 

We also know that there are many families who have parents that are having to work from home and when you add siblings into that, the allocation of devices is spread thinly. 

There is a lot of information on the news at the moment about how families can apply for devices via their school. Please be aware that as soon as ordering is open to us (as a school) we will then look at ordering our full allocation (our full allocation is still not going to be enough) and distributing. However, this is unlikely to happen for a few weeks as secondary pupils have been prioritised. 

We were able to order 16 new devices before Christmas and Mrs Pace (Finance Assistant) and Mr Noyce (Site Manager) have been delivering these today (alongside 70+ Free School Meal Hampers). 

Thank you once again for your patience whilst we adapt to the changing situation. If you happen to have a device that you would like to donate a family, please get in touch with the school office. Unfortunately we are unable to manage loaned devices from members of the public (due to the complexity of insurance). However, if you can donate a device for someone to keep, you will be making a real difference! (Ideally Laptops, Chromebooks, Tablets). Thank you.

Mrs Smith

School Business Manager