Europa School UK uses a Google for Education domain (europaschool.uk) to store and share documents and to use email. Europa School UK provides a comprehensive how to guide on using the full suite of Google for Education products available to our children. This can be found at this 
Following are some tips and guides on how to get ready for distance learning. These are meant to be a quick start-up guide in setting up your computer and or tablet devices for using the Google for Education suite and provides practical information based on initial use and experience by some of the parents.
Equipment
A computer will be most ideal. Any operating software (e.g., Windows, macOS, Linux, etc.) can be used for as long as the computer can connect to the internet and has a compatible web browser (see below on software for recommended web browser). A computer is best as part of what the kids are currently learning is to touch type on a computer keyboard.
An Android or iOS tablet is the next best tool for use to access the school work materials remotely. Since the school uses Google Classroom (see below topic on software), Android-powered tablet devices are out-of-the box compatible with all the software used for this system. It should be noted, however, that tablet devices that use Android variants (e.g., Amazon Fire tablets) do not support Google applications natively or out-of-the-box and considerable tinkering will have to be done to install these applications needed for remote school work. Also, older tablets that cannot be updated to the latest versions of the Android operating system may not be able to install the latest versions of the Google apps particularly Google Classroom.
For iOS tablets (iPads), Google applications needed for remote school work are available for relatively newer iPads that have the latest iOS versions. As of writing this, we can confirm that iPads released circa 2013 and later will most likely work but those that have iOS version 10 or earlier will not be able to install the latest version of Google Classroom.
The factors that will need to be considered when using tablet devices are the following:
screen size - tablets with at least a ten inch screen will most likely be sufficient for the type of school work that has already been provided. Anything smaller than this (i.e., iPad mini, smaller screen Android tablets usually with 7 inch screen sizes) will be challenging for the kids to use to complete their school work on the devices themselves. The option can be that the materials sent by teachers can be printed out at home, worked on by the kids by hand and then the finished work scanned using a scanner or using the tablet itself (if with a camera) and then submitted on Google Classroom. However, this will require you having a printer that works and that your tablet has a camera.
memory - whilst the school work being sent out are plain text documents, if the tablet has been heavily used for other purposes before this time then the memory might be not as big anymore given that too many applications are installed on it already. This can limit performance of the tablet and also limit the remaining space available for the kids to store their completed school work. So maybe consider removing some unused applications and try to free up about 4 gigabytes (at least) of memory on the tablets. This can be the other limitation of Android tablets such as the Amazon Fire as they tend to have a small memory.
keyboards - the touch typing exercises that are included in their school work will require an actual keyboard to be effective. Tablets will have on screen keyboards as standard and most kids are very adept to using these already. But this will not allow them to learn to do proper touch typing. A possible solution will be to use a keyboard that connects wirelessly via Bluetooth to the tablets. This will obviously require that the tablet has Bluetooth connectivity which may not be the case for all tablets (though most relativley new i.e. past 3 years have this built-in) and for you to have a Bluetooth keyboard at hand. A Bluetooth keyboard can be pricey so if you don’t have it already it can be significant expense. This is not a critical issue as some of the exercises on BBC Bitesize train them to simulate a keyboard on any surface and there are non-tech ways of learning to touch type using a keyboard layout set on a flat surface for example. But this is just good to keep in mind as the drawback of using a tablet.
Connectivity
Internet connection is needed to be able to receive the school work that will be sent by the teachers and to be able to submit/hand in the school work back to teacher. Internet connection will also be needed if your child would like to participate in the video calls that the teachers setup during the day. Children will not need to be on the internet when doing their school work as once the materials have been received from teh teachers, the kids can work on the documents offline. However, a good proportion of the school work that teachers have sent use online resources (e.g., Bitesize from BBC, links to music, links to YouTube videos) that require internet connection to access. Hence, on balance, an intermittent internet connection can be ok but to benefit from all the materials and resources shared will require full internet access.
Software
The school uses Google Classroom to faciliate the remote school work. I think this system is what the whole school is using also regulary and all our kids have their own school accounts for this.
If using a computer, no specific installation of additional software is needed. All you need is a web browser. Given that Google Classroom is built by Google, the ideal browser to use is Google Chrome as it has native and built in functions to facilitate use of the Google Classroom and all other applications needed. It is highly recommended therefore to use Google Chrome (download and install it from here if you don’t use Google Chrome) which can be installed in most operating systems (i.e., macOS, Windows, Linux). If you do not prefer Chrome, other web browsers will work fine such as Safari in the macOS, Internet Explorer for Windows and Firefox for most operating systems. However, there are known compatibility issues with Firefox and Internet Explorer though this incompatibility is more problematic with Internet Explorer. As a general recommendation, try to avoid using Internet Explorer for Google Classroom and be aware that there might be some issues when using Firefox.
To access the applications needed for remote school work, all that is needed is to sign in to your child’s school-provided Google account. You can do this through the following steps:
Go to www.google.com
Sign in to your child’s school-provided Google account.
Details of your child’s Google login details have been provided by teachers on an email found here.
There is a link on the top right corner of the Google web page that says SIGN IN. If you don’t see this then maybe there is already a user that is logged in to a Google account (maybe your own personal Google account). Google knows that most people will share computers and that these people might have their own Google accounts so they allow for multiple accounts on the browser. To add your child’s account, click on an icon on the top right corner of the page. This is usually a circle with either the first letter of the name of the user that is currently logged in or if the user that is currently logged in has a photo of himself/herself stored in the Google account, their photo will show here. When you click this, a drop down dialogue box will show up and will indicate which user is currently logged in and show any other Google account that is connected to this browser. To add your child’s account, click on the option that says “Add another account” and then you will be led to the standard Google sign-in page. Enter your child’s username (first letter of his/her first name + first three letters of his/her last name + 30 + @europaschool.uk) and then press next. Then supply your child’s password which is by default password3ee. Note that if this is not the first time that they have logged into their accounts (they log in to their account in school as well), they might have changed their password (which is recommended) so ask your child if they did this and what password they changed it to. I think it will be good for us parents to remember their current password in case they forget it.
- Once you are signed in to your child’s account, you can now access the applications needed for remote work. These applications can be accessed by clicking on the icon with 9 dots on the top right corner of the Google page. The main applications that our kids will use are
Google Classroom - this is where the teachers will send the school work and where all homework related materials will be organised. Here is a link to more detailed guide on using
Google Meeting - this is what they will use to join virtual classrooms with their teachers and classmates. Here is a link to a more detailed guide on using
Google Docs - this is the word processing application of Google. Most school work will be given in this format and kids can type in their answers
Google Drive - this is the cloud-based drive that our kids will save their files in. They have unlimited storage! Here is a link to a more detailed guide on using
