Over the past few days since the announcement of the Easy4U scheme on Reddam House, parents, students, and teachers have all expressed concern for this change.

Students and parents were only informed of this decision much later after it was made, without being given a voice in this decision. Speaking with some teachers shows that some of them were also not informed.

Trying to implement this rule brings a multitude of problems:

Financial

Due to Reddam House’s current rules, every student who joined is required to bring their own device, many of whom would have bought a device for this specific purpose. This means ~500 students who bought the device specifically for school will have their device reduced to a paperweight and be forced to purchase or rent a new device. Parents who have more than one child at the school will then also be forced to buy or rent multiple devices. The renting option does not help much either, since with the currently increasing school fees due to the VAT increase on independent schools, this cost adds up, and adding any more cost onto parents could make it financially unviable for some.

Technical

The devices that are currently displayed on the Reddam House Easy4U web shop are not worth what they are priced at and, for some students, lead to a downgrade in performance, making it less than ideal for them. Many parents would have bought their children devices at a great value due to them either going on sale or being bought in a different country at a cheaper price, while still having much better performance than the laptops on sale.

Looking at the cheapest model, for example, the ‘Lenovo - 500w 2-in-1 G5’. This device is priced at £810.90; however, its specs are a terrible downgrade for many students in the school. The processor is an Intel N150, while the average student has a device with an i3 or i5 chip. The i3 chip is 30–40% faster than the N150, and the i5 chip around 3x faster than the N150. Many devices with an i5 and i3 chip are priced at around £250–700, while still having more RAM and storage. The device also comes with a touch screen. While some students do prefer touch screens, some should still be given the option to not buy a device with touch screens, as they do significantly increase the price of a device.

Looking at the ‘Lenovo - 13w 2-in-1 G3’ priced at £1118.40 and ‘Lenovo - ThinkPad L13 2-in-1 G6’ priced at £1309.30, these two do have better processors (an i5 and Ultra 5 respectively). However, just like previously, they are also incredibly, incredibly overpriced compared to other devices that arguably have better performance and storage capacity.

And finally, looking at the Surface Pro 11 priced at £2,100.00. The Surface Pro is known to be a very expensive ‘premium’ tablet by Microsoft (but even the market price of the two newer models is around £880-1100, a ~100% mark-up). The longevity of a Surface Pro varies from person to person, but from most experiences, it does not last as long as people would like for being a premium product, and although it does exactly what it is meant to for work, for the price that it is, you could get much, much more powerful devices or get other tablets like an iPad or Samsung tablet for a much lower price. However these are simply the problems of a normal surface pro, the one offered by the school is ~£1000 more than the market price of the surface pro 12 and 13, not even mentioning the 11. Therefore, students who are considering getting a surface pro are expected to pay double the price for an objectively inferior model of the surface pro.

One more problem with all of these devices is that they cost more than their actual retail price. Reddam House’s reason for this is as follows: “devices are supplied as complete packages, including required accessories, protective cases, accidental damage and theft cover, rapid repair or replacement with loan devices, and ongoing technical support.” However, this should be a purchase decision for the parents and students to make at the very least and not a mandatory requirement.

Educational

Many teachers and students have expressed concern about how this change will disrupt workflow, especially in senior school. Students who are unfamiliar with Windows and use macOS on a regular basis may have a difficult time trying to transfer over their files and school resources, if they can at all. Many students also use a tablet as their notebook, as they find this easier to look back over their notes as well as saving paper. If they are no longer allowed to bring their own device, they will not be able to access those notes while in school.

Students in senior school who have been completing coursework for their respective subject are affected negatively by this change, as having to use a new device will cause them to have to start working on this from the very beginning, which is extremely unfair.

The email sent to inform the school about this change said that this has worked for Year 5 and 6s in the past. This is not and should not be an accurate representation of the rest of the school. It is unreasonable to assume what has worked for a primary school student will work for a middle or senior school student. The workload is completely different, and the notes, planners, strategies, and systems different students have set up for themselves to study effectively cannot be used or are incredibly inconvenient on the new devices and therefore make any study session in the school incredibly unproductive.

Proposed Solutions

In light of these concerns, we believe there are multiple alternative solutions that could still allow the school to achieve its goals without causing unnecessary disruption to students and parents.

Talking to some parents working in cybersecurity and IT, it is known that the technology to monitor activity when connected to a local network exists and is readily available. It is also commonly used by companies to manage activities on employee’s personal devices. The technology is not affected by the use of VPN. Has the school actually explored alternate options that do not involve passing on such a significant financial burden to parents? Solutions like ZTNA combined with other layers of security are alternatives that give the school the required controls without being affected by tools like VPN.

Students who already own suitable devices that meet educational requirements should still be allowed to use them, rather than being forced to purchase or rent completely new devices. If safeguarding software is required, this could instead be installed onto existing personal devices.

Finally, students, parents, and teachers should all be properly consulted before major policy changes such as this are implemented. Decisions that affect the daily education, finances, and workflow of hundreds of families should involve input from the people directly impacted by them.

We respectfully and strongly urge the school to reconsider the implementation of the Easy4U device scheme in its current form. We believe that student safety and efficient digital learning can both be achieved without placing unnecessary financial and educational burdens on families and therefore ask the school to pause the implementation and engage in meaningful consultation with students, parents, and staff before proceeding further.