My DS's school recently sent home a leaflet about some kind of private homework scheme, which consists of some marketing and education guy coming round and assessing your child, then drawing up a homework plan for them until they are 11 (because we have the 11+ in Kent), with the threat that if you don't buy it (at £64 per term or something ridiculous like that) a) your child will be less likely to pass the 11+, because only 25% of kids do, and you don't want your kid to be in the other 75%, do you and b) you are obviously an uncaring, feckless kind of parent who is too busy spending money on piano lessons, swimming lessons and all those other unnecessary extra-curricular things that won't help your child to pass the 11+ and therefore receive a semblance of an education in Kent (salesman actually said to my friend that they didn't bother to go and assess children in houses on such a such a council estate because none of the parents there cared enough about their kids to commit to the programme).
Pontius-Pilate like, the letter from the school said that they didn't endorse the scheme, but thought some parents might be interested. I was quite annoyed actually. I don't think the school should be acting as the Direct Marketing department of this private company which is using scare tactics to sell its academic product. (It's taken school time and resources to send letters and leaflets to every parent.) And I'm sure its academic product is perfectly good, but shouldn't the school be teaching my child to pass the 11+, if that is the function of education in my area (which it appears to be - I may not like it, but if that's what they think their job is, shouldn't they be doing it, rather than sending me info about a private company who does it?)
I'm sort of outraged by it, but I'm so used to being outraged by life in general, that I no longer know what's worth making a fuss about!