Libre Office
In school on pupil laptops we use the office software suite Libre Office.
Our computing curriculum has now reintroduced a basic coverage of word processing, presentation software and spreadsheets, having initially moved away from traditional office software skills to prioritise computer science when Curriculum 2014 first launched. Having found our pupils became deskilled in this area as predominantly touch-based devices take over at home, we have chosen to give office software a light-touch reintroduction.
Libre Office is free open-source software that can be downloaded on Windows PC computers, Mac and Linux from The Document Foundation here.
We no longer provide Microsoft 365 pupil logins for Word and Powerpoint online due to a difficulty in restricting pupil sharing, giving pupils direct access to other pupils without school being able to easily monitor what is being shared. In some instances, direct embedding of Youtube videos was also bypassing restrictions parents had placed on their home devices so we felt this was not suitably safeguarded given the age of our pupils.
However, pupils can upload their Libre Office documents (or Microsoft format documents if you have that software from home) into their My Work space on their learning platform account to be viewed in school.
