What is the student support centre & Should I be interested??

[pippo]

dd has just started year R - have just had a letter home from school asking if we are interested in the student support centre, looks like extra cirricular learning. Anyone come across this? Is it worth while, pricey, hot houseing?

We looked into it and decided that it was not for us - certainly not in Reception/Y1. It's for children who aren't meeting the KeyStage targets, intended to supplement what they are learning at school. I think the material is quite good, but unless your child misses a lot of schooling (say from ill-health) or is doing particularly badly at school, I think it's a waste. If we're not happy with how our children are doing later on in their school career then we would look first at what is going on in the school. If the standard of teaching is not good enough then we'd probably move the child rather than do this programme. If, OTOH, the standard of teaching is good but our child is struggling then we would consider doing the programme. It's definitely not hot-housing, and there's no advantage to doing it if the child is meeting targets, as s/he would then be bored at school.

Interesting pretty candles, seems a funny thing for year r children to be involved with then. Sounds like it's one to a give a miss.

I'd say so, pippo. There was an old thread on this organisation, but it was not actually named in the thread and I couldn't remember the thread title. According to that thread, if you show an interest, the organisation will send a salesperson round to persuade you that your child will end up in a sink school without tutoring. Are you obliged to send the form back even if you are not interested? If so, they're still paying the primary schools to distribute their material. All well dodgy IMO.

I asked the salesman about the leaflets that the school had distributed, and he claimed that the school had no connection with them and no financial benefit or incentive as a result. But I am deeply sceptical. Why on earth would the school have distributed these forms in Reception, when they are one of the best schools in the area, with consistently hgih Ofsteds? Particularly why would the school have made such a song and dance as they did over getting responses (whether positive or negative) if there was no incentive to get responses back from the parents?

There was an interesting bit on the old thread about the organisation focusing on schools in affluent areas, rather than those with lots of council housing in the catchment area.

Old thread here

Surprise surprise.

Didn't realise this would be such a can of worms...
So glad I asked here though, last thing I need is someone trying to convince me that dd has the worst career prospects ever.
She is 4 fgs!

It also operates for GCSE (Perhaps KS3 as well) students as I've received information from DS' secondary school about it. We decided not, though DS does go to a Maths tutor who is going through all the GCSE topics (his set had 4 Maths teachers last year so I feel he might need some assistance). I also got the feeling that the school was rather keen that parents took up the offer - whether because there was some financial inducement or because they thought it would boost their GCSE ratings.