To wonder if I'm turning into the female version of Victor Meldrew...

[MooMaa83]

So DD8 comes home from school...recently had a poetry competition at school and amazing-a letter stating that she has won and will have her work published in a book. Fantastic! But...hang on...every single child in her year has 'won'. And we get the pleasure of buying said book of poems for £19.99. It just feels a bit off running it as a competition as they clearly were going to publish every poem-implying that your child has' won', when it actually feels like a money making scheme. No obligation to buy the book, but kinda feels like we have to. There have been so many school related expenses I feel like I'm being milked. Let me have it- AIBU and grumpy??

We have the same. It's a money spinner for the publisher and I've never bought one.

The thing about Victor is, he was usually right!

YANBU. It’s a huge con it’s been going on for at least 20 years.

I fell for this about 30 years ago.

Yeah that poetry book thing has been around for years. I can't believe schools still do it.

They must be on a decent rate of commission!

Same about 30 years ago too. I bought the book and still have it. Feel it’s a bit like awful school photos - you think if you don’t buy you are letting your child down and are an awful parent.
I don’t think you are a Victor Meldrew - you saw through it, which is more than I did.

I feel even more outraged now...I know schools are struggling financially but this feels a bit much. It's the dishonesty around it as well....hasn't caused any harm to DD necessarily but I feel like she's been played!! I'm quite miserable about a lot of things atm, and this may be an outlet for the rage!

Yep it's an oldie. So manipulative!!

Don't feel bad. You're not being unreasonable or grumpy. I'd tell the school that you won’t be buying a copy and it's not credible that every child in the class has "won"... put simply, you don't believe it.

My poem was featured in one of these years ago although IIRC not the whole class were published (but a fair few!) which perhaps added a tiny bit of veracity to it.
Whatever you do, don't tell your child that it's a scam though as my uncle did to me!
Yes it's true but a bit shit to say to a proud 8 year old (as evidenced by the way I'm still bitter now nearly 3 decades later) 😁

Maybe tell them you're so proud you're going to get a special version of just their poem published - print it out on nice paper with a fancy background and illustrations or something and put it in a frame?

Oh heck, I hate these things. Bad enough telling adult that they've won an 'award' or whatever, but preying on children in this way is the pits.

Good teaching opportunity for your DD.

about
a. Scammy people in general
b. The importance of thinking independently and not blindly trusting authority figures like the bloody school who shouldn’t let unethical companies like this darken their door.

Yes @MooMaa83 this con has been going at least 20 years that I know of. My 2 DC both got a poem published in an anthology of poems when they were in Primary School.

Along with 50 others in their school year! 😆

We didn't even realise it was a con until we had ordered 4 books. 2 for us and 2 for both sets of grandparents. They were £14 each in the early noughties - 20-ish years ago!

Utter rip-off. Just like the school uniforms. Can't get Tesco's or Asda's own blazers and PE kit, it MUST be the one the school provide. Costing 5-6 times more. We had 2 children close together, so it cost a fucking mint! I wonder now how we did it!

Someone is making a fortune off the backs of hard-working, struggling parents, and I'm not sure who it is. The schools are raking in some of the money though for sure.

See also: school photographs. After about 7 years of paying through the nose, when mine were in Senior School, (and were 12 and 13,) I started to take a photo of them against a magnolia wall in the study at the back of the house, (in their uniform(s.) Then I got them printed off at Boots for 49p to 79p each - 5 X 7, and 7 X 9 inch! Instead of £15 each! They were better than the 'official' school photographs too!

.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2009/mar/21/young-writers-competition

Came across this article...from 2009 and nothing's changed!

The primary school mine went to had every child in the school draw or paint a picture (each class had a theme) which were then framed and parents felt obliged to buy them at parents' night. I'm sitting looking at two wonderful owls which were painted by my now 24 year old and which are hanging on the wall but the wedding and the castle pictures which hung on our previous dining room wall have never made it to a wall in this house (my DDs hate those ones).

Thanks for that link @MooMaa83 ^

Just confirms what I - and everyone else pretty much on this thread knew!

Utter con. Utter rip-off. And what a disappointment to find out your child(ren) is one of 4 or 5 dozen others who had their poem published too! (Perhaps even more!)

This happened to my friend's DD who is 9-10 years younger than mine, (about 8 years after it happened to mine,) and all 63 poems (from 63 children) that were submitted by the school were published. A total of 170 books were sold - at £17 each.

A total of £3000 just from 2 classes!

Yes, me too, about 25 yrs ago.

I too fell for this 20 years ago! Can't believe its still going on. OP, I think I'm also a female Victor Meldrew

It's a variation of the 'You won a model competition!' that was doing the rounds in the 1980's 😁
Everyone I knew entered and - what do you know - we all won first prize and could have a portrait session at considerable cost.
One of my friends was disgruntled when I told her it was a con and I think, nearly 40 years later, she still doesn't believe me.

To this day, her 'winning' portrait takes pride of place over the telly 🫡