Dear Parents and Carers,
Since the Chromebooks have been delivered we have had a number of parents ask us to reopen the portal. We had not intended to do this before June because of the delay between ordering and delivery. We have been working with our suppliers and we hope that by closing the portal and placing orders before Christmas, that the Chromebooks will arrive for delivery to students after the spring half term.
The Chromebook Portal will be reopening on 04/12/20 and closing on the 17/12/20. All details of one-off costs will be published on the portal, along with a monthly option which includes finance.
We offered our Year 7 cohort across the secondary phase the opportunity to buy a Chromebook to use to support and further enable online and blended learning. Parents either pay a monthly fee across three years that includes everything from the cost of the Chromebook, a case, full warranty and insurance over the three years (that also has no excess for theft and accidental damage) as well as a Google Management licence, so it will automatically connect to our school’s wifi. The term of this will be reduced on the new portal to reflect the first payment being taken in February and so the number of payments will be less.
When we originally opened the Year 7 portal, we had a number of parents ask if this will be open to other year groups. Due to COVID19, we do not know exactly how the future will look, but we have moved all of our learning onto the Google Suite this term and our plan is to continue using this as our main platform moving forward.
We are therefore making the same offer to the current Years 8 and 9 where you can buy a Chromebook over three years. This means that any current Year 9 pupils will have a device with a full warranty and insurance in place until the end of Year 11, and current Year 8 would have this until the end of Year 10, at which point there will be the option to extend the insurance for another year. We cannot guarantee how much these devices would be used in lessons, but we would encourage students to bring them into school as an extension of their pencil case.
Our current Year 10 and 11 pupils have also been considered. Because Year 10 and 11 pupils will only be in our secondary phase for one or two more years we have reduced the number of payments which proportionately increases the monthly cost.
The first payment will be taken at the start of February, and the amount and number of payments has been adjusted to ensure the final payment is made in the beginning of August at the end of the three, two or one year term depending on the year your child is in.
There is also the option to pay for the device in one instalment.
Here is a link to a parents’ handbook which also contains a question and answer section: https://tinyurl.com/gfmChromebookHandbook
If you are interested, please click here to sign up for the scheme: https://tinyurl.com/GFM-chromebook
Due to processing and placing the orders we anticipate the Chromebooks will arrive in late February 2021. Please complete the ordering process by Thursday 17 December 2020.
Mr L Mulhall
Assistant Headteacher
