Student Support Centre

jed35

I sat through a Sales pitch from the Student Support Centre last night. This chap came around to our house and showed us the product which was extremely poor quality and overpriced. The DVD’s he showed us looked like Open University productions from the 1970’s!!!. They were really boring and did not engage my son. I asked my son what he thought of it and he said it was boring and they have much better stuff at school. For the cost involved it was awful and I can’t see any child keeping up with this rubbish for any more than a few weeks, never mind the 4-years that the company legally tie you in to.

The pitch by the chap from The Student Support Centre lasted 1hr 30 minutes and he made a big point about my son’s school recommending their company, and it’s true, our son did come home with information about The Student Support Centre from school. However, I have since found out that schools get paid by The Student Support Centre to send out information. Basically if you make an appointment to see The Student Support Centre Sales Rep, the School gets paid a fee.

The Head teacher at my son’s school has confirmed that the school earns a fee based on each reply slip sent back and thats the only reason they send out information about The Student Support Centre.

They try and sign you up for 4-years and it costs £2400 to £4000 for one child. Once you sign up the agreement is legally binding and you can’t get out of it, so if your child decides they don’t want to commit to it, you are paying circa £60 a month for nothing…for 4-years !!!!!!

The programm they offer is shocking value for money, and I am convinced no child will sit through those boring DVD’s for anymore than a few weeks. There is a lot of really good learning aids on the internet and a lot of other software you can buy for a fraction of the price. CGP books are also really good, as are SATS papers. All these cost a fraction of the price of the rubbish The Student Support Centre sell.

The sales tactics that the Sales Rep used were quite shocking. He said that “If you buy the programme your child will get all of his GCSE’s”. I asked him if he could back these claims up but he wasn’t able to. They try and make you feel guilty by implying that if you do not buy the product then you are letting your child down and must not care about their education. In my opinion these are real ‘scum bag’ tactics. In the end I told the sales rep that his product was expensive and I would not be buying it. He left soon after, but wasted 1 hr 30 minutes of my time.

Do not buy this product, and do not invite their Sales Rep to your House, and if your child returns from school with a slip to return or information from this company, throw it in the bin.

judygarland

I've just discovered Khan Academy and it is brilliant. What a fantastic free resource this is. I cannot recommend highly enough.

mikehussy

As I've seen in above discussion its good.
But many suggestion based on contract.
If we have to do everything direct to contract, so anybody can fill formalities and get easily.
Thanks

Anonymous1972

As I was once a course advisor with SSC, I thought I would leave my own feedback for you all. The negative feedback many of you are relating is to be expected. Many of you won't want to sign up on a long term finance agreement but that is exactly what your child needs. Only a long term solution can get a child catching up. Nobody jumped through hoops overnight. Another complaint is that the salesman was pushy. I can certainly state that SSC definitely do not train people up this way so it is the rep that is pushy. SSC do occasionally get complaints from parents about this and I can personally state that it is spotted relatively early in a course advisors career as he will have a high cancellation rate which flags up pushy sales. SSC have sacked many for this and more will come.

The programme however does match the curriculum and works very well. I used the maths with my own daughter (free for me at the time), and it worked because myself, as a parent, made it work. I dedicated time, commitment and encouragement and she got the result at GCSE after 3.5 years of twice a week, 30 minutes each time.

I have since moved on to another sales position with a different company as it gave me more opportunity to earn but I cannot honestly fault their maths and English home study programme. I hope you don't think I am being biased but if you can answer yes to these 3 questions then go and take up that programme.

1) can I afford £x per week for a long period? Now 2 years is the maximum as the pricing has changed.
2) can I dedicate 2-3 x 30 minutes a week for 2 years 0% finance?
3) is my job secure enough.

Ps. Everybody in f-t employment passes finance with a deposit up front so go and think. Is it for me? If so you won't regret it.

Ex-SSC Course advisor (Anonymous)

garry232

Please tell me if my sums are wrong, but I calculated that this course costs over £100 per hour!!! Here's what I wrote to my school today after being shocked at the sales tactics and pricing of this company:

"I am writing to confirm my concerns about the letters received referring to the Student Support Centre.

1. The leaflet seems to me to be designed to mislead parents into
thinking they are some kind of official support group connected with
the school or government and that the personal details supplied will
not be going to a separate private company when in fact that is
exactly what is happening!

2. My brief research has revealed concerns about high pressure sales
tactics and a shockingly high price for the course. I was quoted £18
per week but what they didn't tell me and I found numerous complaints about online is that it requires signup to a 4 year contract, making the total cost £3744 per subject. If someone buys both English and Maths then that's the same as a whole Masters degree course! I wouldn't prejudge the quality of their material but it reportedly consists of 10 minutes of DVD instruction per week which therefore works out at over £100 per hour. It seems unlikely that rate could be justified by any kind of pre-recorded material.

My worry is that by continuing to promote (even if not officially
endorse) this kind of thing, you risk damage to the school's
reputation that outweighs the commission received. I am sure the
school could arrange quality tuition yourselves for a much lower price
and still make a good profit from it."

garry232

Hi James

Thanks for your reply and of course I agree that people should do their own research. The price I used was what SCC actually quoted me themselves.

My calculation assumes 10 minutes per week of DVD content based on what I've read online and that's how I arrive at over £100 per hour. Can someone who owns the course confirm this? Suppose it's actually twice the length then it would be "only" £50 per hour :-D

Suppose it's also half the price (I assume you're a good haggler, or perhaps they just give randomly different prices to everyone), that would make it "just" £25 per hour, which is still more than hiring an expert tutor, hmmm.

Fairity

In my experience (gained during 2009/10), the Student Support Centre are pushing something which is quite expensive, and is not, as they once claimed and then had to pull under an ASA upheld complaint, individually tailored to your child. It's just pre-packaged DVDs. If you look them up under Companies House, you find they were once 'Atlantic Videos' or something similar.

The supposedly useful accompanying text looked very poor to me, and the salesman, who said he wasn't a salesman, kept going for 50 minutes before I stopped him and said we only wanted to see what kind of company this was.

He tried an 'assessment', which I very nearly stopped him from undertaking because it was very clearly inappropriate, which I could only see as being designed to make the child falter and prove the 'course' was necessary. My child was 5 years old at the time, and I would say the approach , which put some questions many adults would find challenging, was simply immoral and made my child show regressive behaviour because he was stressed by it all. I only allowed it because I wanted to see if, as reported by others, this company used dubious tactics to sell their stuff.

Laminated 'certificates' that are supposedly 'recognised' by someone didn't impress me in the slightest.

Is this expensive? Over the long term, yes. I can get a law degree for much the same money. Is it worthwhile? In my view, no. Do they hard sell? Absolutely. They use schools to issue their promotional material, with text supposedly issued by the headteacher that says this stuff might be worth looking at, whilst not actually promoting it (which is not what it sounds like). You then find, if you search, the precise same text issued to parents by other schools, clearly because the SSC is just giving the text to your school to paste onto their stationery.

A LEA bloke here said he had been given a presentation by the SSC and thought the stuff was impressive. Just shows what muppets LEA officers can be. Since making a bit of a stir about this, I haven't heard of the SSC since.

I was told to expect 90 minutes by the company itself. I have a video of all of the visit, where the salesman prefers to 'wait for mum' (I got the very strong impression because he thought she would be an easier pushover) before continuing with his pitch.

You might also like to see th Guardian article, which you can easily find under 'Guardian' and Student Support Centre'.

Save your time and money. Put the slip in the bin, go down your local library and read with your kids for free.

riversidejo

Well, we received the supporting letter and flyer with reply slip. Something, not sure what made me do research about this company. Am I glad I did?!?
We are interested in our children's progress at school and as a volunteer who helps out listening to children read in reception and year 2, I see that there is a call for this kind of support.
But this method of selling is no better than the vacuum cleaner salespeople who used to come and put roots down in your lounge, making you feel guilty cause their product could suck up the hidden dirt under your floorboards that you current vac was missing
Now it's worse, making you and worse than ever making your child feel inadequate and that you need their product. Shame on you SSC.
Any school worth its salt can offer advice for FREE and point families in the direction of reasonably priced resources!

Just thought I needed to share my rant :mad:

popadom

Why not just see a tutor every 2/ 4 weeks to go over anything you/ your child are not sure about. Graduates can charge from £10, with teachers £15-20+ per hour.

If your child just needs help with the odd question, and you feel happy to help with most subjects/topics, then I would consider a tutor.

Work sheets for you to provide can be found at :
http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/


I recently re-took my math GCSE and found BBC bite size to be helpful to get your head around things. I found it broke things down into easier bits(e.g.- Algebra!). It is also interactive-so you can do online "worksheets" and get the results instantly.

Good luck

mh2013

Has anybody else had issues with Student Support Centre?