Student Support Centre

A question about : Student Support Centre

Hi,
I'm unsure if this is the correct place for this but here goes!

My son is considering an educational support scheme for his 8 year old son, to assist him with English and Maths. This is being supplied over 4 years at a cost of Ј17.40 Per Week by the above (SSC).
Whilst I'm very happy that he wants to help his son, I'm concerned at
a, the outlay
b, the 4 year term.

Has anyone had any experience of this scheme or company?

Any advice welcomed

Best answers:

• If he is considering additional tuition, I think that he should first talk to the school to see if they actually think his son needs it.
  He should also investigate private, independent tuition. Many teachers and other suitably qualified folk (such as recent graduates) offer tuition. These would probably charge a similar cost, but there would be no 4 year contract.
  Of course, you can always google the company too!
• That's exactly the reply I hoped to get! My reservation is the 4 year contract.
  Thanks for the reply.
• If your still interested in the ssc programme - you can buy it second hand from ebay at a fraction of the price.
• In my opinion The Student Support Centre are the worst company I have ever dealt with. I had been thinking of getting extra tuition for my son for a while and found a flyer in his book bag. It sounded good so I gave them a call. We arranged a meeting at my house where the teacher (salesman) proceeded to give both my son and I 4 hours of hard sell. He bondarded me with statistics and charts, gave my son an assessment and made me feel guilty if I refused to take out a contract.
  At the time I was a single parent, vulnerable and worried about my 6yr old and signed up to help him with his schoolwork as I believed it was a reputable company.
  I received the pack consisting of a box of videos, some workbooks and a chart. The pack arrived 1 week after the cooling off period!!!!. The videos were very boring and my son struggled with the work, as the initial assessment that was given to my son was so much easier. So not only was his confidence level low at school he also lost confidence at home and started calling himself 'thick'.
  Enough was enough, we stuck it out for 3 months to see if it would improve and I decided to write a letter explaining the situation.
  Cutting a long story short it took me 3 extremely stressful years and a warning to issue proceedings in Court to get out of the contract.
  My advice is to invest your money in a private tutor which is what we did and are continuing to do so which is money well spent. My son is now 15yrs old and has caught up with his peers, which is all I ever wanted in the first place.
• It was the 4 years contract, that put me off going with this! It all started off so well, then we felt that we went into 'hardsell' overdrive. We were made to feel bad by not giving a committment.
  We have made a decision to go down the tutor route instead.
  Thanks for your post, funky-footprints.
• What about letting children be children instead of forcing more studies on them, I think five full days a week is enough studying to do as well as the homework enforced on them each evening. They will be much more rounded humans if they do other things apart from study, a lot more can be gained from socialising in sports and other after school activities. If all a child does is extra study that will be all they know and I have found on my university course that these young people although get good grades are unable to mix well with their peers and tend to get excluded from group activities and have little confidence in themselves apart from being able to get right answers. How is this going to help them have a good quality and "happy" life
• Hi I purchased the student support centre material over a year ago and pay monthly over a 4 year period. I have 2 children who were out of the country for 2 1/2 years & educated in another language. When we returned they were behind in English & Maths.
  After a lot of consideration we purchased the course which we have from start of primary until before GCSE so until age 14. My children were below average on their return to the UK system but after a year are now above average & in some top set!
  The course does take commitment - I find that saying a set day & time means that they know when they need to do it & saves arguments. They can see the benefits & the DVDs mena if they don't fully undersatnd we watch again. I sit down & watch the DVDS with my children & then can help more if they get a question wrong or need more explaining.
  The course has worked for us & we have many more years of it!
  We have finished with Part 1 Maths & English & after seeing this thread have decided to try & sell it on ebay to help with the costs of the course.
  As we progress further with the course we will sell Parts 2 & 3.
  Like everything it takes time to help the children & for me having the guidance with the DVDS helps & the lessons as trying to do it on my own wasn't working.
• Why not just ask the teacher what extra work they would recommend - most are happy to point you in the direction of workbooks and programs that can be recorded from the TV, or at least that's what we found.
  If the teacher is that unhelpful that they do not tell you where to find additional material (unless of course, it is because they think the child is working fine for their age) then you are likely to need the support of a private tutor anyway. Again though you need to ask around; with my brother, whose teacher thought needed statementing but could not get the LA to agree, she instead helped us find a recently retired teacher who was brilliant and much cheaper than the big companies.
• I read the thread on the Student Support Centre as we were considering their programme for our 6 year old son. We met our local sales rep this morning who went through the programme. We're not going ahead, but I thought I would add my comments based on our experience.
  The sales approach we received was quite emotive and slightly misleading, but not aggressive. I challenged the person from SSC about this Ј3.5k and 4 year contract which is mentioned earlier in this thread, and as far as I can see this simply isn't the case. There's no doubt, it's an expensive programme. The minimum payment is around Ј1,400 in total for what would cover a child's education for maybe four years in one subject eg Maths. Whether you choose to pay this sum spread over 1 year or as long as four years seems to be up to you. I think that's where this 'four year contract' maybe comes from.
  I personally think that the programme is too expensive for what you get, but what we saw of the DVDs looked very high quality and well presented. If you're considering additional support for your child I'd suggest approaching SSC with an open mind, which was not my initial attitude having read earlier comments in this thread. You don't have anything to lose and if you don't like what the salesperson from SSC says, tell him/her that the conversation is over and thank them for their time!
• Still sounds expensive compared to a personal tutor - even a well-qualified, experienced one. A teacher or tutor could likely point you towards appropriate books, websites etc - for well under Ј1.4k.
  Lots of text books are aimed towards studying for particular GCSEs. I'd imagine that a couple of those, combined with a personal tutor if needed, could be a better and cheaper solution.
• Have a look at the futureschool website its 19.95 per month for up to 5 family members and is all online for maths and English grammar. You get video lessons/testing and as a parent you can monitor how your kids are going.
• Ask at school, then advertise for a tutor. Most students doing either English or Maths should be able to help
• Does anyone know where I could obtain information on pricing for this company or if it's possible to get a copy of their contract without getting a call from a salesperson?
• We have just had the rep (SALESMAN) out and i feel teriable my brother is 13 and missed out on a lot of the basics and we have seen evidence of that tonight, can see that he really needs some help but this isnt the option.
  The school sent home the first lot of information which said it was to help the parents support the children and to give the parents help on helping the children to learn but this wasn't the case.
  The SALESMAN came out tonight and gave my brother 2 assesments which did show he was behind for his age which i feel bad for. We then watched a DVD which was recorded in 2006 so its all ready 4 years out of date. He then told us the cost it would be 20 a week for the dvd's, work books and exercise books. you get everything in the 1st week, i was thniking thats a bit expensive but carried on listening open minded also for the 20 a week i get a phone number to a teacher between the hours of 4-7 mon to fri and 11-1 on saturday and then can log on to the internet and show the child how to do it. But the big bomeshell was that i needed to pay Ј20 a week for 3 Years totaling Ј3120.00 and i have to SIGN A CONTRACT.
  This is a very expenses way to help our children there is no way I can afford the money and i was left feeling really bad that I couldnt help but financial isn't not an option.
  When he thought we was deffently going to say NO He just got up collected his stuff and went didn't say bye my nan asked for his number as we needed to discuss weather we could afford it between us he just looked at us found his card and still walked out.
  I wonder how many people actually are on this program and how much com!!!!ion he didn't get tonight.
  Other small thing is we booked an appointment for 7 he called me at 5 to see if he could come early.
• Ј20/week is enough to buy some time with a personal tutor - or you could get a tutor for some periods for maybe half that, spread out over the year. That would seem a much better option.
  By the way, assessing students appropriately is difficult. I wouldn't trust a salesperson (unqualified?) to do this - and it's important not to talk down your brother's abilities and progress based on tests that may or may not be accurate. Have you asked the school how he's doing?
• We have and they suggested this company, to help fill his gaps in the basic's which it would do if i didnt have to have a 3 year contract.