BGS Secondary School Laptop Program

The datasheet for the HP Elitebook X360 1030 G8 2023 laptop is available here for your reference. 

The School has undertaken an extensive review and identified the benefits of the school-managed laptops, particularly on the effectiveness on boys’ learning. As such, we do not allow a ‘bring your own device’ option for students.

All secondary students are required to participate in the compulsory three year school-managed laptop program are automatically supplied with the HP Elitebook X360 model device every 3 years.

• Year 7 – all boys receive their laptops along with a full day of IT training on the 2nd day of term, after their school orientation which is held on Day 1
• Year 10 – If your son commenced BGS in Year 7, he will be provided with his new laptop on his first day of Year 10.
• If your son commenced BGS in any other year level, his laptop will be valid for three years from the time of his admission, with a new laptop provided at its expiry on Day 1 of the next school year.

No, laptops are automatically ordered for all students when the device reaches its three year expiry.

If your son’s device is in good working order at the end of the supported 3 year period, you are able to bring your son’s expired laptop to the IT office and the team will remove the expired BGS software and management and restore it to factory defaults free of charge.

Alternatively, if the laptop is not wanted, the School has an eWaste service. You can drop off old laptops to the IT office to be disposed of / recycled sustainably.

Three years is the supported asset lifecycle of these devices from our warranty and support partners, and this is standard in education, corporate and government.

Outside of this lifecycle, the Windows operating systems, asset drivers, supplied software, security updates, HP service and warranty repairs expire. We are unable to extend them outside of the three year period.

No. We also recommend you evaluate whether insuring your son’s laptop against loss is feasible via your own home and contents insurance, as personal laptops are not covered under the School’s insurance policy. 

Students save all their schoolwork in Microsoft 365 OneDrive which is cloud-based, so logging into a new computer is quick and easy and requires no data transfer. Boys are taught to only save their work in OneDrive and not to store school work on their laptops,.  This allows us to deliver seamless IT support when they need to borrow a loan laptops; if their computer needs to be re-imaged; and when laptops are replaced after three years, and it ensures the boys work is always backed up and never at risk of being lost.  They simply go to www.office.com to login and access all their school work.

At Brighton Grammar School, we take extensive measures to provide a cyber-safe environment. While the boys are at School on our network, we restrict access to gaming, social media and inappropriate websites via our network, firewall and the Qustodio application which is installed on every device (and continually reinstalled via policy if it is removed). Antivirus software is installed, and email is filtered by Mimecast for malicious content.

All students are also provided with a copy of the ICT Acceptable Use Policy in their school record book, and have signed a copy.

If you would like to know more about the child-safety settings or restrictions you are able to apply at home, you can utilise the parent component available via the Qustodio software installed on each student device (refer also to Digital Wellbeing section) .

Our students are spending more time online than ever before. This presents many new challenges, and an increase in online risks to children and their wellbeing.
We take our students’ digital safety and wellbeing very seriously. We continually look at ways to ensure that BGS can be proactive to ensure children always remain safe online. We know that when the School and families work together, we will have a more effective and positive influence on protecting and guiding a child in their digital development.

That is why we are delighted that as part of our partnership with Linewize, to be upgrading the Family Zone app on student computers we have been using since 2019, to their new child safety app named ‘Qustodio’ which globally provides protection for more than 15 million students.

As a result of this upgrade, Linewize are retiring their redundant Family Zone app as of 30 June 2023, and in its place, providing the Qustodio app, giving parents visibility of outside school hours use of your child’s online activities on their BGS school-managed learning device.

See the Qustodio Parent guide. 

At the end of all three-year cycles, the family owns the device outright to keep. At this time, your son can bring his laptop to the BGS IT Department to have a generic version of Windows installed and all school licenses, controls and monitoring removed. 

If your son is leaving Brighton Grammar School and you have not had the laptop for the full three years, you can either pay out the remaining amount owing to keep the laptop, or contact the IT Director to discuss return options.