The choice of laptop or tablet is a personal one, but we expect girls to have a 2 in 1 laptop with a touchscreen, stylus and keyboard. This gives versatility for typing long answers as well as annotating figures, drawing diagrams etc.
We are conscious that the market for IT equipment is large and more expensive does not necessarily mean better, especially if you are paying for unnecessary applications. Therefore our IT Systems Department has put together a list of our recommendations for a device designed to last at least five years.
Requirement of your daughter’s device:
- It must be a touch-enabled device with a compatible stylus to enable the digital handwriting of work.
- It must have a suitable operating system (we recommend Windows 11 or iOS). As a Microsoft school, we teach using Microsoft Office, OneNote and Teams. Chromebooks are not suitable for our application usage and Mac OS prevents the use of touchscreen functionality.
- A minimum of an i5 processor (or equivalent).
- A minimum of 8GB RAM.
- A minimum of 128GB hard drive. This should be plenty as we encourage and teach pupils to make good use of cloud-based storage.
- A physical keyboard: typing using an on-screen keyboard for any length of time is not effective. This could be built into the device, case or a separate Bluetooth keyboard.
- A minimum of 10.9 inches screen size. (The larger the screen area the better – iPad minis are too small for all-day usage).
- A good battery life.
- Camera (rear-facing cameras make scanning/photographing handwritten work much easier).
- For international students, please ensure the device is set up in English with an English keyboard set-up – otherwise, we are not able to offer IT support regarding the device.
Prior to starting, please make sure your daughter’s laptop is set up with a user account, fully charged and that your daughter has access to the internet and an app store, so she can download necessary apps such as Teams and One Note.
In addition, you should ensure you have:
- An antivirus package (such as the ‘Sophos home virus protection’ which is free to download) loaded.
- A good protective sleeve or case.
- Headphones. (Given Headphones are easily misplaced, we would urge pupils not to bring wireless Air Pods to school)
- Everything identified with your daughter’s name (laptop, stylus, keyboard, headphones, case, cable and charger). All laptop chargers look the same in a classroom! Fluorescent nail varnish is one way to mark property to help your daughter quickly identify her equipment.
- A copy of the serial number, make and model for any warranty or insurance claims. We are not able to insure any personal devices used at school, so recommend that you ensure your daughter’s device is covered by a home contents insurance or device insurance policy.
The school does not currently recommend any particular device for use in school. However, many of our staff use the Acer Spin range of devices. Other commonly purchased devices include a Surface Pro or an iPad Pro. There are many retailers of all three devices, selling either new or reconditioned models.
Please see the links below for more information:
Acer Spin Laptops
Windows Surface Pro
Apple iPad
There is no need to purchase a separate Microsoft Office Licence. In September, once her School email account has been activated each girl will be given access to five free Microsoft Office Licences to download onto her devices. Using these, she will need to download Microsoft Teams and OneNote and other Office 365 apps and software.
