Student Support Centre

Norman-B · 24 August 2007 at 9:00AM

Hi,
I'm unsure if this is the correct place for this but here goes!

My son is considering an educational support scheme for his 8 year old son, to assist him with English and Maths. This is being supplied over 4 years at a cost of £17.40 Per Week by the above (SSC).
Whilst I'm very happy that he wants to help his son, I'm concerned at
a, the outlay
b, the 4 year term.

Has anyone had any experience of this scheme or company?

Any advice welcomed

student_advisor · 24 August 2007 at 5:41PM

If he is considering additional tuition, I think that he should first talk to the school to see if they actually think his son needs it.

He should also investigate private, independent tuition. Many teachers and other suitably qualified folk (such as recent graduates) offer tuition. These would probably charge a similar cost, but there would be no 4 year contract.

Of course, you can always google the company too!

Norman-B · 24 August 2007 at 6:53PM

That's exactly the reply I hoped to get! My reservation is the 4 year contract.

Thanks for the reply.

deb76 · 23 December 2007 at 12:20PM

If your still interested in the ssc programme - you can buy it second hand from ebay at a fraction of the price.

vangirl70 · 7 July 2008 at 10:21PM

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 bondarded 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 my son 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.

My advice is to invest your money in a private tutor which is what we did and are continuing to do so which is money well spent. My son is now 15yrs old and has caught up with his peers, which is all I ever wanted in the first place.

funky-footprints · 19 August 2008 at 7:27AM

vangirl70 wrote: »

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 bondarded 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 my son 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.

My advice is to invest your money in a private tutor which is what we did and are continuing to do so which is money well spent. My son is now 15yrs old and has caught up with his peers, which is all I ever wanted in the first place.

ive read this reply on another forum, we spent last night googling this company.

before our salesman sat down last night, we mentally prepared ourselves that, this is what he is, a sales man !!! he was excellent at his job, and he realy sold it to us, we actually like the whole concept, we do a lot of things with our children after school, similar to the work involved in the program, and our concern is that what we are doing is right?

both our childen are doing well for thier age, we want them to go down the private route at some time, and our concern is that at some time they will have to take an entrance exam.

However it is the contract side of things that has put us off. it is a such a commitment (money saving or not) that you cant get out of. (the program we looked at would of cost us £3,500, which was just over £70 a month, but for 4 years !!! ) i think we would of actually done it, if it was a yearly thing. we have friends with one child doing kumon (we have checked that out and didnt like it at all) and we have other friends who use a tutor. so this was a serious option to us. but how can anyone decide to commit for that long a time ?

anycase, we have decided no, we are going to persevere with what we do with our childen (which is a lot cheaper) and just hope what we are doing is going the right way. if in the near future either of our children start to struggle we will cross that pth at the time.
x

Norman-B · 19 August 2008 at 8:29AM

It was the 4 years contract, that put me off going with this! It all started off so well, then we felt that we went into 'hardsell' overdrive. We were made to feel bad by not giving a committment.

We have made a decision to go down the tutor route instead.

Thanks for your post, funky-footprints.

cardiffforthefacup · 20 March 2009 at 6:33PM

What about letting children be children instead of forcing more studies on them, I think five full days a week is enough studying to do as well as the homework enforced on them each evening. They will be much more rounded humans if they do other things apart from study, a lot more can be gained from socialising in sports and other after school activities. If all a child does is extra study that will be all they know and I have found on my university course that these young people although get good grades are unable to mix well with their peers and tend to get excluded from group activities and have little confidence in themselves apart from being able to get right answers. How is this going to help them have a good quality and "happy" life

vicstorbay · 29 April 2009 at 7:24PM

deb76 wrote: »

If your still interested in the ssc programme - you can buy it second hand from ebay at a fraction of the price.

Hi Deb, am interested in this programme but likewise think its too expensive, what did you search under? as when i search student support centre on ebay nothing comes up :-( Thanks

magnolia844 · 18 May 2009 at 11:33AM

Hi I purchased the student support centre material over a year ago and pay monthly over a 4 year period. I have 2 children who were out of the country for 2 1/2 years & educated in another language. When we returned they were behind in English & Maths.
After a lot of consideration we purchased the course which we have from start of primary until before GCSE so until age 14. My children were below average on their return to the UK system but after a year are now above average & in some top set!
The course does take commitment - I find that saying a set day & time means that they know when they need to do it & saves arguments. They can see the benefits & the DVDs mena if they don't fully undersatnd we watch again. I sit down & watch the DVDS with my children & then can help more if they get a question wrong or need more explaining.
The course has worked for us & we have many more years of it!
We have finished with Part 1 Maths & English & after seeing this thread have decided to try & sell it on ebay to help with the costs of the course.
As we progress further with the course we will sell Parts 2 & 3.
Like everything it takes time to help the children & for me having the guidance with the DVDS helps & the lessons as trying to do it on my own wasn't working.

MsHoarder · 18 May 2009 at 2:41PM

Why not just ask the teacher what extra work they would recommend - most are happy to point you in the direction of workbooks and programs that can be recorded from the TV, or at least that's what we found.

If the teacher is that unhelpful that they do not tell you where to find additional material (unless of course, it is because they think the child is working fine for their age) then you are likely to need the support of a private tutor anyway. Again though you need to ask around; with my brother, whose teacher thought needed statementing but could not get the LA to agree, she instead helped us find a recently retired teacher who was brilliant and much cheaper than the big companies.

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