Parents across the country are protesting about letters from their children's schools that help to market a DVD home tuition scheme. In return for sending out the letters on school headed notepaper, signed by the headteacher, the schools receive a payment for "administration costs".
The critics complain that some parents are signing up to the Student Support Centre's literacy and numeracy programme, which can cost thousands of pounds, because their school is advising them it "may be of benefit" to their children.
The headteacher's letter states: "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." It adds: "Neither I nor the school actively endorse the service."
Bob Jefferson, whose daughter attends Towerbank primary in Edinburgh, calls it "an abuse of trust". "I don't feel that it is appropriate for the school to be promoting a private company. Quite a few parents at our school were upset about it. I know schools are strapped for cash, but it seems they are getting paltry sums of money, so why are they selling their souls to the devil?" he says.
Towerbank's headteacher was contacted by Education Guardian but did not wish to comment. A spokesman for Edinburgh city council said: "We recently developed our policy on this and we advise schools not to use headed paper."
Contact details
More than 25,000 primary and secondary schools have sent out the SSC material, says the company, one of the largest UK providers of home tuition materials. Parents are urged by schools to return the form whether they are interested or not. They are asked for their contact details, which are passed on to the company.
The programme of DVD lessons for key stage 1-4 is backed by a tutor helpline, and children are given regular tests.
Zoe Hall signed up when her daughter was in year 8 at what was then Lindsey school and community arts college in Lincolnshire (now Cleethorpes academy). "She brought home a letter and, because it came from the school, I trusted it. I thought she could do with some extra maths tuition. So I returned the slip. A sales lady came to the house. She said: 'You can't put a price on your daughter's education', which made me feel very guilty."
Hall signed up at £65.60 a month and quickly regretted it, but was unable to cancel the contract because she missed the five-day cooling-off period (since changed to 14 days). "It makes me feel so angry," she says. "It has been a waste of money and has caused arguments in our family." SSC says it considers cancellation of contracts on a case-by-case basis.
Hall says her daughter tried to follow the DVDs for six months in year 8. "She found it too hard. I don't think she even needed it in the first place. The sales woman assessed her as needing to do the programme, but she sat her mock GCSE in maths at Christmas [in year 11] and got a B [without using the programme]." At the end of the four years of her agreement, Hall will have paid out £3,148.80.
Martin Brown, principal of Cleethorpes academy, says: "We agreed to distribute the leaflets because we are often asked by parents where they can access good educational support outside of school. Having looked at the material provided by the Student Support Centre, we were confident that it could be of help to students as a home-based complement to their schoolwork. We do not endorse this company and we make this quite clear in the letter we send out. Our role is simply to distribute the leaflets, collect the return slips and pass them on to the company." The school has decided not to distribute the leaflets any more, he adds.
Not all parents disagree with SSC's marketing methods. Caroline Stevens (not her real name) from Yorkshire has a 13-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son. Her children have been doing the programme for over a year, after she found her son was performing below the average level for his age. She has found the programme "really good". "My son has progressed from level 3, which was below the level for his age, to level 4. I am thrilled."
SSC says that other tutoring organisations, such as Kumon and Explore Learning, also promote their programmes through schools.
Guy Flower, communications manager of Kumon Educational UK, says: "Schools are a key audience for Kumon and we encourage our instructors to build good relationships with schools. There are cases of Kumon instructors sponsoring school football teams by offering branded football kits, for example, but we do not give schools any kind of payment."
Tutors at Explore Learning build up relationships with schools by offering free maths and literacy workshops, and putting on assemblies. Heather Garrick, its marketing director, says: "We do not have any financial arrangement with them. We sometimes send out leaflets through the schools, but these are clearly from Explore Learning and are not signed by the headteacher."
Anthony Lee, founder and chairman of SSC, says the programme has been of huge benefit to the children who have been on it. "Parents get in touch with us because they are concerned about their child's maths and English," he says. And he believes schools are not giving out the information about SSC because of the money they receive. "We make a small token payment of up to £160, which barely covers the administration costs of the distribution of the letter. We have been operating this system for 15 years and schools are quite happy with it ... The schools clearly say in the letter that they are not endorsing the programme."
However, school newsletters indicate that the schools themselves sometimes see this as a source of easy fundraising.
Fundraising
A newsletter from one school said: "An envelope from the Student Support Centre will be sent home with your child. Please read and return the reply slip to school whether Yes or No. The school will receive an increased donation on the number of replies received. Last year the school increased their donation by 100% purely on the number of replies received. Please help us to achieve this once again. It is an easy source of fundraising for school funds."
A spokesman for SSC explains: "We pay a lower fee if the school does a small amount of admin work. We pay a higher fee if the school does a larger amount of admin work. Schools also now have the option to donate the token payment to World Vision – a worldwide charity. A number of schools do take this option."
Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, is concerned that with more schools becoming responsible for their own budgets, an increasing number could turn to these kinds of schemes to make money. He is warning schools to "think very carefully about what they put out on letterheaded paper".
"Parents trust their schools and schools need to be very careful how they use that trust," Hobby says. "What seems to be a fairly sensible way of generating funds can turn out to be something very different. Schools should make sure they do a lot of research before becoming involved with these kinds of companies."
A spokeswoman for the Department for Education said: "Heads should use their common sense and professional judgment when dealing with approaches from outside organisations. Schools are in a position of authority, and so helping to publicise specific suppliers or products could put a parent under unintended pressure to pay for it."
Source http://www.guardian.co.uk/
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