Can my child use a second hand or existing laptop from home?
Yes you can if:
- It meets minimum requirements
- Other users of the laptop in the household or family accept that their data might be lost.
Parents may need to hire technical assistance for used devices for reasons such as upgrading to windows 11, cleaning up clutter, uninstalling 3rd party antivirus and other safety programs that can conflict with the onboarding process.
If you are unsure if your laptop meets minimum requirements, please email BYODSupport@mitcheltonss.eq.edu.au
Do I need to buy Microsoft Office?
No, this is free as part of your child's Microsoft account
Do I need to buy Antivirus?
No, in fact you may be required to uninstall your antivirus software so you can use the antivirus provided by Windows to resolve issues caused by paid antivirus.
Do I need an extended warranty?
A 3-year warranty, along with accidental damage protection and insurance against theft, offers a stress-free way to own a BYOD laptop. However, we encourage parents to conduct their own financial analysis to determine what is best for their individual circumstances.
What can I use to protect my students at home?
After you have completed the onboarding process, you can choose to set up safety software that you want to use.
Based on feedback from other schools, we have seen other families use Microsoft Family Safety without issues if set up after onboarding. We recommend you find out what your requirements are before buy anything. You can often trial software first or talk to the company about what you want the software to do.
Your safety software should be able to turn off automatically at school based on a schedule or be significantly turned down/disabled prior to coming to school.
The school can not assist with setting up safety software.
Is there a simple way to provide online safety for my child at home?
Yes. You can choose to only enter the wifi password when you want them to use the internet and you can watch them, once this time has finished, go to the wifi connection screen, right click and then click “Forget”. Your child won’t be able to access the internet until next time. Lock the laptop away when you don’t want your child to use the device.
Can I charge my laptop at school?
Students are not able to charge their laptops at school. This means laptops that are purchased need to have 6 hours of battery life or more. The advertised battery life on laptops is almost always lower then the real world battery life
When should I buy a laptop?
Term 1 2025 starts on the 28th of January 2025.
You will need to find a few hours of time prior to the 28th of January for the onboarding process.
The best time to buy a laptop is when you want to start using the laptop so your warranty does not expire prematurely.