🎓 Education IT Recycling

What is actually on a retired school device

It is easy to think of school IT as low risk because most of it is used by children for ordinary work. The risk sits elsewhere. Staff laptops and office machines routinely hold safeguarding records, SEN and EHCP documentation, pupil premium and free school meals data, medical and dietary information, behaviour logs, and staff HR and payroll files.

That is some of the most sensitive data any organisation holds, and it is frequently stored on machines that have been passed between staff for years. Assume any device from an office, SLT or SENCO has something on it that matters.

The summer window, and why to book in spring

Every school in the country wants the same six weeks. Refresh projects land in July and August because that is the only time a suite can be emptied, and disposal capacity across the whole sector runs out early — often by the second week of July.

The fix is unglamorous: book provisionally in the spring. It costs nothing, it can be moved, and it is a far better position than ringing round in August with four hundred laptops stacked in a hall and a new intake arriving in three weeks. If you know a refresh is coming, tell us while it is still a plan rather than a problem.

Locked iPads, Chromebooks and MDM enrolment

This is where education disposal most often goes wrong financially. Devices still enrolled in Apple School Manager, Jamf, Google Admin or Intune cannot be resold, because the next user cannot activate them. A locked device is worth nothing on the secondary market — which removes the value that funds free collection, and attracts a £25 per-device charge.

We always send you the list of affected devices before any charge applies, so you have the chance to release them. Our MDM removal guide walks through the process for each platform. For Chromebooks, the device must be deprovisioned in the Google Admin console; for iPads, released from Apple School Manager. Both are quick once you know where to click, and both are frequently missed when the person who set the fleet up has since left.

Turning old kit into budget

School budgets being what they are, it is worth knowing that retired equipment is sometimes an asset rather than a cost. Batches of identical laptops in working order can carry genuine resale value, and where they do we will tell you and factor it into the job rather than quietly keeping it.

The equipment most likely to be worth something: recent staff laptops, interactive whiteboard hardware in working order, networking equipment, and any Apple hardware. The equipment least likely to be worth anything: anything more than about eight years old, damaged screens, and devices missing chargers. See technology buyback for how valuations work.

Everything else in the cupboard

Schools accumulate an unusual variety of technology. Beyond laptops and desktops we regularly take interactive whiteboards, projectors, visualisers, document cameras, AV and sound equipment, networking gear, servers, cabling, tablets and old phone systems.

What we cannot take is general waste — furniture, catering equipment, science department chemicals or anything that is not IT WEEE. If you are clearing a whole building, it is worth separating those out before we arrive so the day runs smoothly.

Devices donated to families

Many schools now refurbish older devices for pupils without a computer at home. It is a genuinely good use of the hardware, but it carries the same data obligation as any other disposal: a device leaving school premises with a staff profile or cached safeguarding documents still on it is a breach. If you are running a donation scheme, wipe to a documented standard first — and if you would rather not manage that internally, we can process devices and return them ready for reissue.