schools 'advertising' via kids book bags

[misdee]

each week we seem to get a leaflet about things like tottenham hotsput football training, movies(flushed away this week), cartoon network etc. i find it very annoying and most of the stuff gets recycled as soon as i empty the bag. does anyone elses school do this? does the school get paid to do this? is anyone else bothered by it?

It's not ads though is it, it's a free parenting, things to do etc type magazine?

There are two in our area, Kids Direct (smaller franchise) and Little Tigers (independant) and the head of the primary school we gire thrust one in our hands saying, this is a really useful mag.

I don;t know how much a franchise costs or what support you get but I do know the ones round here seem very sucessful.

no julienetmum this one is adverts mainly and a few community pages in the middle
they(rareingtogo) seem to be selling a peice of legislation that isnt really theirs to sell and at the min there are loads of football french gym karate clubs asking for bookbag marketing that id be suprised if the head didnt stop it all.

One tip to your friend cowmad.

Don't worry about the school head, it is the school secretary she needs to convince.

Does she want me to send a copy of the mags round here?

I really wouldn't worry too much about heads stopping it. I was very sceptical when we were told to market that way but I was so surprised atthe willingness to help.

I had a leaflet this week from a martial arts group, they use the school hall 2 evenings a week. The leaflet had so many spelling and very basic grammatical errors it was shocking. (the leaflet and group are organised by English people so it wasn't a case of English being a 2nd language.)

It also turns out that the children had spent some time watching a demonstration from this man too purely to promote his business.

The week before I went into read with my DC class and were told they were all watching a video because he teachers had a meeting. I am all for educational videos etc but this was an animated one and was just for fun nothing related to their work! If we ask for a day off for non educational reasons (i.e. holiday) we get a lecture about children missing vital schooling etc AGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH

last week we got advertising from Student Support Centre and a covering letter from Head T in the school bag. All confirmation of receipt of this information had to be returned. Found out this was because the school gets money for them! I've had issues with missing letters before and was told once they're in the bag we consider communication has taken place. So how come the school needs proof that we've received the stuff from Student Support and not school letters which are more important? so they can get the money of course! I am so against this back door advertising which although letter stated no endorsement carries the school logo. Seems my local council approved this! Next year I expect we'll also have Tesco, Virgin and local double glazing companies.

We get a fair bit of this (I know this is an old thread but worth reviving maybe) and it irritates me. We have also had a couple of incidents of shitty X-factorish pop bands coming along to play to the DC (The Wanted were one of them) which annoys me a lot: not just that these bands are shit, but that playing to an audience of 5/6/7 year olds makes it seem like the school is endorsing the band: DC come home with loads of cheap tacky merchandise and invitations to buy more of it.