We encourage our students at Sherwood to bring their own devices.

Each year, your child will be asked to complete a Sherwood Primary Device and Internet Use Permission Form. 

For year 1s and 2s this permission form will cover the use of devices (such as iPads and robots) your child will have access to use during their school day.

For year 3, 4, 5 and 6, this permission form will cover use of school owned and personal devices (such as chromebooks or laptops) and is more specified to reflect on Digital Citizenship. In these year groups, your child will be allocated a personal email that they will use during their time at Sherwood. 

The Ministry of Education (2019) says ultrafast broadband is transforming education, and has invested heavily in helping schools and teachers to "equip students with the necessary digital skills to take part, create and thrive in a fast-evolving world".

When buying, and before your kids begin using their device:

• Ask the retailer how long Google Chrome is supported. Some devices only support Chrome for 3 years where as others support for 5 years.
• Ensure the device has a battery that will last a school day - 5-6 hours. Your child will not use it for 5-6 hours solidly but may forget to put the device to sleep during this time and it will be out of battery when they come to use it. We do not encourage students to bring chargers into school as this is a health and safety hazard.

• Weight - light enough for your child to carry

• Size - Think about size of school bag too

• Wireless - must have wireless access to internet

• Screen size - No smaller than 20 cm (diagonally)

• Ask the retailer how much longer it will receive security updates. Older devices might not get updates after a short period of time.
• Install any outstanding updates for the operating system. It might have been sitting on the shelf for a while.
• Set the system preferences to update automatically. Updates fix any known security holes in the software you’re using.
• Make a long and strong password and don’t use personal information like your child’s date of birth, address or pet’s name.
• Install an antivirus on the device and keep it up to date.
• If you’re buying a replacement device, back up the files on the old one, do a factory reset, and check the data is removed before you get rid of it.

For more information, please check out BYOD information from our BYOD evening on our school website and our recent article about our Netsafe evening, keeping our children safe on the Internet.