Pemberley, this is wondering slightly OT, but have you considered purchasing the iPad yourself and having her use it at school? We ran into situations when ds was first using AT (this is pre-iPad world lol!)... he needed a laptop for school, it took a long time to get the school to agree to let him have one (supplied by the school), but it came with a few conditions that we couldn't agree to (in our case, the school wanted us to sign a replacement contract if he was to be allowed to take the laptop home... that required us to reimburse the full cost of a *new* laptop should the laptop be damaged... and it was a very old not-working-so-well laptop.) There were also issues with the laptop itself - it wouldn't hold charge. And.... we weren't able to install software on it hence ds was limited to what the school felt he should have for school. That all happened at about the same time we were realizing that we needed to be looking at AT for *life*, not just for schools, so we chose to provide the laptop and software. It cost us $ but also saved us a lot of hassle with the school *and* enabled us to get software etc to ds much quicker than we could have going through the school.
With iPads, there is so much that is so useful and so inexpensive (other than the iPad itself)... that it might be an option you'd want to consider. I'd also ask the school how it will work once you have the iPad - will you be able to purchase and download books if you want to, or will your dd only have books provided by the school?
Another thought (and I'm not the most up-to-date techie in the world...) but if you can download ibooks to an MP3 player or iPod, that might be another solution you could purchase for your dd and that she could enjoy not just at school but when you're driving or at home etc. Once he started downloading books to his iPad, ds started taking his iPad everywhere lol!
Best wishes,
polarbear
