Dear Parents and Carers
We are often asked at the school to advise on book and study programmes to support our children's education. Many schools have already sent out information from The Student Support Centre, a company which provides help to those parents who would like to offer their children a home based complement to their schoolwork in Maths, English and Reading.
I have been asked to distribute information on behalf of The Student Support Centre and having reviewed the service they provide, feel it may be of interest to you and of benefit to your children.
Although neither I nor the school actively endorse the service, I do feel you might like to know the service is available and to decide if you would like further information.
I would appreciate it if you would return the slip to your child's class teacher no later than Thursday morning of this week. The Student Support Centre, not the school, will arrange any further contact.
Yours sincerely
(signed by HT)
PS. It would be helpful if you could return the reply slip whether you are interested or not, so that the school is aware that you have seen the leaflet. Thank you.
The italics, emboldening and underlining are all in the original letter, which is written on official school stationery.
The form, which parents are being asked to complete, whether or not they are interested, asks for the name of the parent/guardian, address and telephone number, the names of the child/children, their ages and the school they attend. There are further reminders to return the form to school tomorrow.
I have a big problem with this and I have already made a complaint to the Education Department. Here are some of the reasons why:
- 1. I don't feel that it is appropriate for the school to be promoting a private company in this fashion.
2. I expect the school to educate my children to an appropriate level. That's what I pay taxes for. Is the school admitting that it isn't up to the job?
3. Is there a financial inducement for the school to promote the services of this company? Answer - what do you think?
4. There are other local, well-established companies offering classes in Maths and English, notably Kumon at Portobello Library. Why should The Student Support Centre be given a commercial advantage in this way? What about local tutors who may lose business as a result?
5. This is a real hard sell. Why is it so important that parents return the form the very next day, whether they are interested or not? Because, I assume, the school is paid for each returned form and because the company wants your details for its database. Even if you are not interested at this stage, they aren't going to give up and you can expect telephone calls and junk mail.
Someone told me their material is v,v expensive! We had letters about them too at our school. But we were told if we sent them back in (even if you didn't want any further information), the school would get commission. So I did.
We had that letter at dd's school also with the covering letter from the head. I think it's just a clever advertising ploy.
My friend sent it back saying she'd be interested in further information but then had a phone call from one of their sales reps giving it the hard sell - and yes it was very expensive.
In my opinion The Student Support Centre are the worst company I have ever dealt with. I had been thinking of getting extra tuition for my son for a while and found a flyer in his book bag. It sounded good so I gave them a call. We arranged a meeting at my house where the teacher/salesman proceeded to give both my son and I 4 hours of hard sell. He bombarded me with statistics and charts, gave my son an assessment and made me feel guilty if I refused to take out a contract.
At the time I was a single parent, vulnerable and worried about my 6yr old and signed up to help him with his schoolwork as I believed it was a reputable company.
I received the pack consisting of a box of videos, some workbooks and a chart. The pack arrived 1 week after the cooling off period!!!!. The videos were very boring and my son struggled with the work, as the initial assessment that was given to him was so much easier. So not only was his confidence level low at school, he also lost confidence at home and started calling himself 'thick'.
Enough was enough, we stuck it out for 3 months to see if it would improve and I decided to write a letter explaining the situation.
Cutting a long story short it took me 3 extremely stressful years and a warning to issue proceedings in Court to get out of the contract.
It looks like they make you take out a credit agreement before you even get the material so you are stuffed as there would seem to be no way of cancelling it. You can get very good workbooks cheaply from any good bookshop for much less money.
There's a lot more of this, but you get the picture.I filled in the form (no obligation obviously!) and now I get calls from them plugging their wares, probably every 6 months. I've told them a couple of times now that I'm more than happy with the boys' education now and don't need them but it doesn't put them off calling.
