School’s back…
Although it only seems five minutes since they came home with a year’s supply of exercise books, paintings and other masterpieces for you to treasure, your little poppets are due back for another happy year of learning and losing their kit.
Most children nowadays are worth a king’s ransom at school: mobiles, calculators, laptops, musical instruments, and even just their books. The older they get, the more they need and the more it costs. And sadly, the more likely they are to leave it on the bus, lend it to someone, or drop it on a hard floor. Very few musical instruments are improved by this: violins don’t bounce well.
Apart from the sheer hassle and expense of keeping children equipped, they also risk their academic futures if they don’t use their personal IT wisely. Any work on a computer either at home or at school needs to be backed up. Work completed at school will almost certainly be saved on a network which is backed up by the IT staff at night. But if they just save to the C-drive on their own laptop, they risk losing the lot if the laptop is damaged or stolen. Get them into the habit of saving copies to a memory stick or a family external drive at home. Printing a hard copy is quite a good idea as well, so that mum or dad can keep an old-fashioned folder for reference.
The big fear for parents and grandparents is that young people are now the targets for muggers, just because they are likely to carry a decent mobile, a personal games console, or a laptop. Police advice is always to hand over everything without arguing, to save any risk of personal injury. You can help avoid this by ensuring that they don’t take with them the very latest tempting top-end mobile when they are going to and from school; although many parents do prefer their offspring to carry a mobile for safety, a basic old PAYG model is adequate.
Parents can protect themselves by checking that they have all-risks cover on their home contents policy. As long as thefts are reported to the police, insurance will generally cover the loss or theft of expensive items of school equipment. Call us on 0800 195 8002 for advice.
