There's a clue to the expenditure here...

> A Scottish INDEPENDENT Christian school.

"Last time I checked, the three Rs were still iMportant."

They still are, they've just changed to: Rooting, Recharging and finally Regret for buying the things and expecting kids to actually do their work

It's an Xtian school - evolution? "All down to God. Right next subject, Paleontonlgy - we've got five minutes before lunch"

Despite people's usual misconceptions about "Health and Safety gone mad!", the only thing stopping science teachers from doing so-called "dangerous" experiments are.... science teachers! who are increasingly under the misguided notion that certain experiments have been banned, when they haven't.

Anon, incase the GTC are against me correcting these notions.

Unfortunatly on youtube you can't wash sodium down one sink, pour diethyl ether down another and then run a book on which sink the flames would come out of first!

I went to a scottish state school 15 years ago and I never once saw a sodium-in-water experiment or was let anywhere near thermite :/ I feel like I've been cheated out of an education and can't even blame it on the nanny state.

If my experience is in any way indicative of the state of Pictish schooling then those kids would have been getting crap science lessons to start off with.

* They need to read someone else's cursive handwriting and can't (if you've not got the experience of it, it just looks like a mess)

* Their battery runs out and they need to write something down

* They need to scribble down a note during a phone call

* They need to fill out a prescribed form

* They need to write out a calculation (not that you can't do that on a computer, but loading up MathCAD to do some relatively simple maths- or spending a while crafting an Excel spreadsheet to do the same is nowhere near as simple (actually, the iPad doesn't HAVE software to do more advanced maths, does it?!)).

* They need to draw a graph.

* They need to annotate someone else's scribbles

* They want to pass notes at school

* They're sitting an exam, which should be away from the computer to prevent cheating (can't guarantee no network/internet connectivity) and to encourage their brains to do the thinking for them (i.e. they do the maths, not their Calculator app).

Or any other of a million and one tasks that require handwriting. I'd also bet it improves fine motor skills and co-ordination when taught from an early age.

So yes, after a couple of years it's probably okay to not teach it again. But it's definitely a required skill.

Would you trust an iPad (which has a surface component made completely out of glass) to the hands of a 5-year-old?

..just sync all of them to the same PC and thus be able to use any Apps on each unit.

However, the commercial licence differs somewhat from the one used by Joe Public - do you really think the hospitals and huge companies in the US that have written their own software, publish it to the App Store for all and sundry?

Are people really this stupid?

1. Do you really think the school will be writing their own educational software? It's enough of a struggle to find one which can manage its own LAN.

2. Your post made me look again and Apple indeed does have a Volume Purchase Program to buy software from the App Store, as of last week... http://learninginhand.com/blog/app-store-volume-purchase-program-explained.html , obviously this time lag is inexcusable when it comes to following events from everyone's favourite fashion company run by blackshirted James Bond character and I do apologise for being 'stupid'.

It's a private school you nitwit.

If you're going to start criticising someone's choice of educational hardware and proselytising Googles (sic) lesson plans, you'll find you'd be taken a lot more seriously if you could speak English correctly.

"Could have", or "could've". Never "could of".

"Toughened". Never "toughended".

"Thick angry twat". Never "Anonymous Coward"

It looks like your school had quite enough budget cuts, thank you very much.

I agree with everything you say, but for the sake of accuracy should point out that it's an independent school so I'm presuming it doesn't receive much money, if any, from Westminster or Holyrood.

It does show that their fees are way too high, of course...

As well as the distinction between 'of' and 'have' (they don't even sound the same).

I note the school's home page has an entry 'Contacing the School' - but then it is built on Wiki, so no doubt it will soon be edited.

Need a 'bangs head against wall' icon.

This is an INDEPENDENT school, numptie nae-brain.

They control their own budgets and raise their own funds.

I get most of the others arguments against this and find myself agreeing with some of the points, although I have to question their motives and disapprove of the literal 'WON'T YOU THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?' style rants. You though. Wow. You are just opposed to them using Apple products instead your own choice from Google. That is truly pathetic. Are you one of these new 'fandroids' I've been hearing about?

"This is why schools shouldn't of been exempt from the gov's spending cuts. They look for increasingly stupid ways to piss away money on stupid schemes like this. Would laugh but it's frankly not even worth laughing at how bad the situation is." It's an independent school, dumbass. It's privately funded and as such entirely up to them how they spend their money. Maybe reading and understand the article fully before getting all apoplectic and mouth-foamy is a better approach? That startling piece of fact aside; education is arguably the single most important thing, other than perhaps health, that the government is responsible for and education funding should absolutely be left well alone.

if you'd bothered to actually read the article, you might have noticed the first sentence saying it was an independent school which has spunked its money on ipads. no public money was involved. the cost of steve's overhyped toys will be lost in the noise of the school fees. which can easily be afforded by mummy and daddy.

it might also have helped if you'd stopped to think instead of ranting. there are ~10m school age brats in the country. if the government bought them all ipads it would cost 4-5 billion quid (about 10% of the education budget). 5 billion is almost a rounding error in the national debt that's heading towards 1.2 trillion. besides, there are plenty of more deserving targets for spending cuts than this hypothetical example: defence procurement, pfi schemes, beardie's train subsidies, cctv and anpr systems, every government it project and web site, etc, etc.

Cut to the adoption of pen and paper and some old guy whining about how chalk and slate shouldn't be replaced.

How very

This school is run by the Struthers Pentecostal Church. Presumably to keep their offspring from being tainted by science as we know it, and indoctrinated with "intelligent design".

I either misread the article, or forgot between reading and posting. A Christian school, not a Catholic school.

Apologies.

Rest of the point still stands though. Either it's independently funded by parents, in which case they've paid for them, or it's funded by the (whichever) church it is, so the church have funded it, or a combination of the two.

Either way, as long as taxpayer money wasn't used, it's a non-story. Let churches/rich Scots/parents etc. etc. waste their money however they want.

And I assume your presumption of an anti-Catholic rant was based on my usage of the term "Sky-Fairy"? Way to miss the point of the post. You've obviously not seen some of the other posts floating around on El Reg's comments board! Really, if I was going to devolve into that sort of pointless posturing, I'm sure I could find any number of better derogatory phrases about the Catholics...

... but I won't.