The Student Support Centre

[Llareggub]

I've just done the daily rummage in my DS's book bag and have pulled out a sealed envelope, addressed to me. This is unusual, and I assumed it was either a letter regarding his performance or the measles outbreak. We are in South Wales.

Anyway, it isn't. It is a letter from the HT, asking me to read an advert for the Student Support Centre, which he doesn't endorse. He just wants us to read it and then sign a piece of paper confirming I have read it.

What on EARTH is this all about? Even the recent Public Health measles stuff didn't come with a reply slip. Is the school being paid for this?

[Llareggub]

By the way, I have no intention of buying into the thing.

[Dededum]

Loads of threads on this - yes the school does get a commission.

If you show interest then they do a quite a pressurised pitch at your home and ask you to sign a contract for a set period of time. Apparently the materials are quite shoddy.

Bin.

[Llareggub]

I shall ignore the reply slip then. My children are only 6 and 4. They need to play and get muddy after school, or watch Scooby Doo, as they are now.

[baffledmum]

I've posted about TSSC before. I used to work in a school office. Avoid! Avoid! Your school will receive commission for each slip returned and then they get in touch. Awful.

[chihiro]

There is a article on this in the Telegraph. I will find a link. We were sent a form with a letter from the school, then a follow up slip the next day saying 'if you have not received the letter but are interested in supporting your child's education then please fill in this slip' Found out this morning that lots of parents did not get the original letter but filled in the second slip in good faith. One parent even told me she thought this was the teacher's way of telling her her son needed extra help!

Fortunately I googled SSC before I sent anything came back with threads on mumsnet, net mums and money saving expert going back several years all saying extremely dodgy avoid like the plague. I have told loads of people at the school gates to google this for themselves before sending anything back.

[Llareggub]

Thanks all. I ignored the letter, and the subsequent follow-up. I wonder who fell for it?

[katedan]

me!!!!! we bought into student support about 4 years ago because ds was a summer baby and I wanted to help him. To start with it was great material follow nat curr and ds enjoyed it. It then became a chore and we stopped all together, DS is now yr 5 and top set for everything but not sure this was student support or school. We are still paying for it and it is never used. It is done by a loan and you cannot cancel. It is NOT worth the money and once you start you receive no support. bin the letter I wish we had!!!

[Primrose123]

In the one we had, they asked for our name and address even if we weren't interested. I wrote on the slip that I did not want to give my information to these people.

[gerbilsarefun]

Katedan we did the same as you, to help dd1 who was struggling in maths. Then we got out of the habit of doing it, kind of on purpose. We put the books on Ebay and got about £400 for them, I can't remember if we had one set or two (2 dds) but were surprised we got that much for them.

I didn't think it was a bad course, but way over priced and in hindsight we could have used other resources to help dd.