Setup Your Device
We are always happy to help set up devices in school, but we do recommend setting up some things before bringing your device in.
In our experience, it is simpler to sign into the device with a personal account (Apple ID or Microsoft account) and then separately sign into the required apps with the WGS account. This helps with setting up device restrictions too.
Setting up parental controls when you first get a new device is much simpler, as it usually requires a parental account to be setup on the device first and then you setup the child account after. The school filters internet access and blocks traffic to most social networks, but we cannot restrict which apps can be opened.
Using on-device controls though, you will usually be able to restrict app installations and even which apps are allowed to be used at certain times of day. This can significantly help with managing distraction in school.
The following website has excellent step-by-step guides on how to do this on a broad range of devices, simply choose your device from the drop down lists on this page, then follow the instructions.
We will provide licences for all the educational software your daughter may need while at Withington. There is no need to buy a copy of Microsoft Office separately, and using the School's licence to sign into everything, the apps will all work together smoothly. Pupils simply sign into the apps using their @wgs.org email address and their email password, this activates their licences and this will work on up to 5 devices.
You can download the Microsoft Office suite of apps from the usual app stores, the links below should take you directly to the right page though:
iOS - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-365-office/id541164041
Windows - https://aka.ms/office-install
OneDrive is also essential for work at school, all student work should be saved there as we work hard to make sure that losing files is a thing of the past. We back up work saved on OneDrive multiple times in different locations and we grant each student 5TB of cloud storage for their time at Withington.
OneDrive should be pre-installed on a Windows laptop, to download OneDrive on iOS you can use the link below:
iOS - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-onedrive/id477537958
Teams is used to assign students their homework and also allocate their OneNote notebooks, it can be downloaded using the links below:
iOS - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-teams/id1113153706
Windows - https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-teams/download-app
OneNote is a digital textbook and exercise book for the students and is therefore an essential piece of software for WGS pupils. It will link with the class teams that the pupils are added to and will save any work completed on it automatically. This is then synced to the teacher's own notebook for marking and assessment. OneNote is included in the Office download on Windows devices, the link for iOS is below:
iOS - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-onenote/id410395246
Almost all the other software used in specific lessons is web-based, so students will require a web browser to be functional during the school day, which is worth considering when setting up software restrictions. We have no preference for any browser in particular and we are happy to work with Chrome, Safari and Edge.