Schools Application Form

The devices will be owned by the school and you are responsible to loan them to your students. Devices should be returned to the school when they are no longer needed so that they can be re-loaned to another student.

Schools are responsible for incorporating the laptops into their domain management systems, drawing down school policies and software and put safeguarding controls in place prior to loaning them to students.  Schools are also responsible for cleaning and wiping of data prior to re-loaning to another child.

Devices will be equipped with a locked Admin account accessible only by school IT teams and an open Student Account which will launch automatically when the device is turned on. Students will not be able to install any applications other than those already approved by Microsoft and free in the Microsoft Store.

No. The devices are for families who do not have a laptop and/or broadband connectivity at home and who therefore can’t engage in their school work, which is especially urgent for schools which find themselves in a local, class or bubble lockdown situation.

We want to ensure that devices are shared fairly between all Westminster schools. We also envisage that laptops will mainly be needed by children who experience economic disadvantage. We used the most recent available confirmed Free School Meal data to work out how many devices a school might receive (within the limitations of a current supply of 750).

We recognise that some children may be in need who are not eligible for FSM and some schools may have made arrangements to provide laptops to FSM children already, so we can only distribute the devices fairly if you give us information on what your current actual need is.

An initial allocation was estimated using FSM data and use of DfE scheme data. A decision making panel will consider all applications at a panel meeting using the initial data and data provided by the schools on the application forms. A decision on final allocation of devices we have available and broadband will be made by the panel in December 2020.

Due to a lack of devices available at the moment it is unlikely that schools will be provided with enough laptops to meet the needs of all FSM children. We will continue to fundraise and hope to make more devices available soon. We would also encourage you to continue your own efforts to increase your student’s digital inclusion. Some local schools have been successful in raising funding for laptops themselves.

This will be managed through the Council’s existing arrangements with suppliers of full fibre or through mobile Mi-Fi Units.

Yes. In the application form we will ask you how many children need a laptop, how many need broadband, and how many need both. We expect to be able to provide broadband connectivity for a proportion of families that need this.