Google Services

A Chromebook is a core item of school equipment at The Kingston Academy. All pupils will need a managed Chromebook and associated licences bought through our Scheme in order to participate fully and safely in school activities. This has been the case from the very start of the school in 2015 and remains the case today. Pupils will need access to the core Google applications and by providing a Chromebook for your child you are giving your consent for it to be used by your child in school. We will provide a licence from Google that gives access to Google applications and services. Your child's use of their Chromebook will be governed by our Acceptable Use Policy.

When your child is given a school Google account, they will be able to access Core Services (like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Classroom) and other services (like Appsheet and Read Along). These are designed to help pupils create, communicate and collaborate. They are covered by a specific agreement for the education sector.

Additional Services

Google also provide a range of additional services (like YouTube, Google Maps, and Applied Digital Skills). They are designed for consumer users and can optionally be used with Google Workspace for Education accounts if allowed for educational purposes by the school. As these are designed for consumer users, under the terms of our agreement with Google we are required to seek consent from a parent/guardian for a pupil to use them with their educational Google account. 

The additional services that may be used as part of the curriculum are:

• YouTube

• Google Maps

• Google My Maps

• Applied Digital Skills

• Colab

• Chrome Canvas

• Google Arts and Culture

• Google Books

• Google Earth

• Google Translate

• Google Trips

• Google Search and Assistant

If your consent is either pending or declined, we are required to put a block on the additional services for your child. All of the services will be blocked; we are not able to offer to block individual additional services for operational reasons. This blocking will be delivered through Google admin settings.

We will periodically check for updates to consent in Arbor. However, please be aware that there is no automated process to do this, and so there may be a significant delay between providing consent and your child being able to access these services, if consent is not given when initially invited to do so.

There is more information from Google in their Notice to Parents and Guardians.