The Student Support Centre

[christywhisty]

From what I gather this is a hard sell company that costs thousands of pounds. I put this on a note to the HM and she wants to see me.

Anyone got any more infor

[ladyrosie]

Well done Propatria!!!!!!! I wish you were a governor in my childs chool then I wouldnt be in such a mess right now. These people are the worst company I have EVER dealt with by a country mile!! Its really low that they use the schools in the first place and even worse that apparently the schools are rewarded for handing these leaflets out!

[gingeroots]

ladyrosie - have you tried posting on the " legal " bit of this site ,to see if anyone has any advice ?
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_matters
Wishing you luck .

[ladyrosie]

Thank you very much for your advice.Ill let you know how I get on. I dont want anybody else to be in this position,they are the worst company I have ever dealt with!!! They just do not care at all!!!I am really annoyed that the schools are allowed to send their leaflets out to parents in the first place! I wonder whats in it for them!

[gingeroots]

Ladyrosie - how about contacting these people

www.bbc.co.uk/tv/features/ripoffbritain/form.shtml


www.bbc.co.uk/showsandtours/shows/beonashow/rip_off_britain

nothing to loose ?

[ladyrosie]

Thanks again for your advice Gingeroots! Ive got to get some advice first of all to see where I stand. But rest assured I will not let this matter rest until I get the result I want.I really hope no one else ends up in such a mess when all I really wanted to do was to help my child who is struggling in school.All this has done is cause loads of stress and upset in our house!!!I wish I had thrown the leaflet from the school straight in the BIN!!!

[gingeroots]

You have all my sympathies ladyrosie - this was so nearly me when DS at primary .
I think it's outrageous that schools send the flyers out .
Keep strong .

[fuzzy1]

I just had a phone call from this company saying that the headteacher of my ds school had forwarded my details to them. I most certainly hadn't as I'd read about them so binned the form.
The headteacher has given them my details without my consent!! Isn't this a breach of privacy??
I'm hopping mad about it.

[gingeroots]

fuzzy - same company being discussed here
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/education/67325-should-i-bother-to-complain-about-this-privatised-homework-scheme?pg=1

[sarahfreck]

All I can say is - as a private tutor - you can get a year's one-to-one totally individualised teaching (an hour per week, plus homework if you want it) from a qualified and experienced teacher for less than £33 a week AND I only ask for 2 weeks notice if you decide to stop tuition! Why on earth are they asking for so much? (unless they are totally a rip-off!)

[banjosoo]

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/may/10/parents-protest-promotion-home-tuition

[orange1688]

Despite reading this thread I decided to proceed with the SSC course for my DS aged 7 although I bought the minimum package I could. He's been watching the DVD's and doing the exercises for me to mark twice a week ( once a week in the holidays) and we are now on lesson 8. It's going very well. My DS is very motivated by the idea of building a solid foundation in maths and english and by the ladder of success which is now on his bedroom wall. The sales person who came to our house took time to explain the educational steps required to become an astronaut ( which is what my DS said he wants to do when he grows up) and my DS took all of that to heart. He understands that education is about giving him choices. We call it his Astronaut Training and so far so good. It does seem expensive but the course material is really good. All presenters so far have been kindly english people and the content is clear and well set out in bite sized chunks. I do have to remind my DS to do the Training of course but he really wants to get the diplomas. I do wonder if he'll keep it up long term but signs are positive to date, and at present I'd recommend it. I'll post again in 6 months or so to report on progress.

[mirianay]

hi,
I have been looking up online to see if anyone was in the same boat as I ? and looks like im not the only one regretting joining this company.. i have been trapped into this too and seems theres no way out! the sales pitch definately guilt tripped me into buying the plan ofcourse i was looking for something which was going to change my childrens life for the better little did i know all they were interested in was the money...how the sales man stressed a no interest finance option which sealed the deal but my complaint is they never mentioned the barclays loan at all and i thought the finance agreement was directly with the student support centre themselves atleast i was made to believe this while the studnt support centre applied for a loan on my behalf! had I known this would be the case i would not have agreed in the first instance I believe they breach the ruless and regulations and play hard sell!!!!!!! now they say i had paper work with the barclays header which would suggest otherwise .. but the truth is the salesman knows what he is doing and all we had to do was tick the approprite boxes whilst he explained the questions asked ...i know perhaps i should have paid closer attention but its the salesmans job to make sure i dont and hey presto they close the deal! and a scam has been delivered right under your nose! this is how they work and its a terrible shame that so many of us are victims to a company which preys on parents trying to help there children.

I have made a complaint to the financial ombudsman and will see where this leads? would be happy to update as it unfolds and Im wondering how ladyrosie is getting on ? please feel free to respond thanks

[Marjoriew]

I was in a charity shop the other day and saw loads of their maths workbooks. They had been unused and were being sold for 59p each. I HE grandson and they looked just like what I was looking for. Unfortunately, there were no DVDs with the books, so I rang SSC and asked them if they would sell me just the DVDs to go with the books. He was well miffed and said 'Absolutely not!'.

[BonnieWeeJeannieMcCall]

We signed up to this and regretted it. If you have a motivated child it would probably be worth it. However, the whole reason we signed up was because our DC1 was struggling at school, but this scheme just gave him more to struggle with IYSWIM. Our DC2, who was doing fine at school, quite liked it, but got bored eventually. I think she'd have been successful at school whether or not she'd done the SSC.

We were still paying long after the books and DVDs had been put to the back of the cupboard to gather dust.

[mad4]

Thank you Mumsnet!!

my son came home with the SSC leaflet today, it looked good and i was going to enquire about further information. but then i thought....i shall see if anyone on mumsnet has used this company, and thus i found several damning threads!!

i shall now steer well clear, if we find in the future we have thousands of pounds to spare for our childrens educational support, i shall be hiring a private tutor.

thank you all so much for posting your experiences and saving me from a horrid hard sell and potentially very costly mistake.
< often won over by salemen emotion>

i am debating writing to the head to express my distaste that this company should be allowed to advertise via satchel post! i would rather give the school a donation myself than be guilt tripped by companies such as this!

[sleepingbunny]

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/9018047/The-2700-tuition-hard-sell.html

definitely doing the rounds again at the moment...

[TorquayAnn]

Hi. I've not posted on here before, but I thought I would add some comments about my recent experience of the Student Support Centre. We had a visit from them last week. I did not feel it was a hard sell.
We were quoted £1830 paid over 2 years, for our 2 primary aged sons. This is considerably less than most people on here have said they were quoted!

We decided not to go with it in the end - partly because of all the negative comments on here, but mainly because we felt it would not suit our eldest son, and our younger son is a bit too young at the moment. The salesman was very pleasant - he gave us a few days to think it over and when I told him I didn't want to go ahead he was fine with that :)

So please don't dismiss this company just because of what you see on here - it may be that they have changed their ways a bit!

[bruffin]

Thats still £75 a month for a few videos and work books. A private tutor wouldn't cost you any more.

[jkochan]

Well, the sales guy just came to visit yesterday and explained to us. At first I really like it and my husband seems to like it until he was dismayed by the price has been quoted to us. It is payable for two years and the service would go through to Year 6 and it is about 1700 pounds in total. When I look up to this reviews and comments to this website, I am not so sure anymore and my husband said a definite "NO."

[VicStr]

Oh my goodness!! Earlier this week a man came to see us and was here till passed 9pm. He gave us a really good sales pitch, but like others, something has been bothering me about it. Not just the price but the fact that it's basically a loan that you are taking out for two years. The leaflet came home from school and again, like others, I assumed that because it came through the school, it would be worth while. Thanks to my 'teacher friend' and her alerting me to all of the reviews I have seen, I'm not going to make the mistake of proceeding. I just hope that others check first!!

[Quip]

Because it's a loan, you can't return the product. For anything else, if you were paying the company £13 per month or whatever, you could stop after month 2 when it became apparent that the product didn't suit you. However, the way this works is that you take a loan for the entire cost of 4 years of the product up front, and the £13 a month is the cost of repaying the loan.

Pure evil. We had this at our school. I wrote to the head. If we get the leaflet again I'll go to the governors. Not fair on families who want to give their kids extra help if they're exploited like this, with a carefully worded letter from SSC making out that the head endorses the product (without going so far as to say it in so many words).

[Dededum]

We have just received this leaflet, have complained to the HT. Think our 'outstanding' school is struggling and are looking for anything to push their results up.