Tesco School Vouchers

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Pope John 11

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Could anyone please give their thoughts in connection with the title above.

1. Do you shop in Tesco in order to retrieve the vouchers?

2. Do your kids ask or pester you for the vouchers or to shop in Tesco?

3. Does your school ask you or hint to you at teacher/parent meetings to support the scheme?

4. Any school teacher/principal comments welcome.

5. Any idea per year what the school gets in products from Tesco.

This article below claims that this is big advertising for Tesco, but gives the scheme the thumbs down. http://www.commercialfreeeducation.com/archives/51

6. Any other comments welcome.
 
My kids school sent a letter home a few years ago that they would accept vouchers but did not want to ask kids, as it was unacceptable to have kids pester their parents about where to shop. If we wanted to send in vouchers, put them in an envelope in the childs folder and the teacher would collect them without comment.

I thought this was a good compromise.

This year, they have stated that they dont want vouchers. THey haven't said why.

I think it is unfair on parents to be guilted into shopping in Tesco, by this scheme.

BTW, if you ask for the vouchers, you always get loads, not just 1 per €10 spent, so few enough people must be asked for them, if they have that many spare.
 
Can you imagine landing from outer space...you land on one of the richest countries in the world and you observe that they are dependant on supermarkets to provide computers for their children's education...Pretty sad state of affairs.
 
Firefly said:
.... one of the richest countries in the world
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small bit off the mark there Firefly!

Anyways back to OP's question.

INTO policy is as follows (as per their press statement on the matter):



INTO Press Release: Statement by John Carr, INTO General Secretary, on Commercial Products in Primary Schools

7 January 2008

Primary teachers opposed to the collection of tokens in schools.

The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation said today that its members oppose the collection of tokens in schools. Such schemes are being used by companies to target young children and their families and let the government off the hook when it comes to school funding.

“State funding for primary schools is woefully inadequate,” said John Carr, General Secretary of the union. “INTO research shows that the day to day running costs of the country’s 3,200 primary schools far exceed funding provided by the Department of Education and Science.

"But," he said, “the solution to under-funding is for government to keep its pre-election promise to double funding for schools. It is not to have schools collecting tokens to provide additional revenue for commercial companies.”

A survey carried out last year, showed that state funding goes nowhere near meeting the real costs of running schools such as heating, light and electricity, cleaning, insurance, office expenses and classroom equipment. Primary schools are funded on the basis of the number of pupils on roll each year. This year each primary school will get €174 per child to meet all running costs. Therefore a one hundred pupil school is expected to meet day to day running costs on less than €20,000 per year. “This simply cannot be done,” said Mr Carr.

He accused commercial companies of trying to exploit the cash shortage in schools. He also said the Department of Education was quite happy to allow this to happen in order to cover up its own under-funding of schools. He said the INTO had sought a policy from the Department of Education and Science on commercial products in schools. “Nothing was done despite a Dáil commitment from the Minister to examine the issue,” he said. “As a result the union devised and circulated its own policy to schools.”

This followed growing concern among teachers at the increasing presence in schools of commercial products and schemes.

The union’s policy states that it is “essential to ensure that pupils are not exploited for commercial ends in schools”. “Commercially driven schemes which seek to promote brands, increase sales and direct purchasing decisions of children and their families should be discouraged while at the same time truly philanthropic giving on the part of the business community should be encouraged.”

“Schools should be free from proof of purchase incentive schemes,” states the policy. “The presence of voucher collection boxes, ‘target charts’, promotional posters and letters of appeal for vouchers is unacceptable advertising in schools. This should extend to all groups associated with schools such as Parents’ Associations.”

The policy provides a number of examples of how such a policy might work in schools. For example it states that “under these guidelines, schools would not collect any proof of purchase vouchers/tokens. Collection boxes and target charts for a particular brand would not be displayed in school and teachers would not accept vouchers, reminding pupils that where they shop or how much they spend is of no concern to the school.”

The policy does however recognize that many companies donate curricular equipment and support schools in a genuinely philanthropic manner. In such cases the union recommends that such activities be given “appropriate adult recognition through the staff, parent association or board of management” but it states that there should be “no in-school promotion involving pupils”.

Ends.



Lots of schools accept tokens without actively looking for them. If they get them they get the stuff. If not they aren't bothered.

In our school there is no voucher collection and we don't participate in competitions that are blatantly commericial and even then we look at the motives behind those we are interested in before taking part.

Any form that has a logo plastered all over it meets the recycling bin without even being read.
 
I understand that schools don't want to be seen to be promoting a particular company, and don't want children pressured into having to collect tokens, but this policy just seems daft to me. Yes the scheme is great advertising for Tesco, and its helping to fill a funding gap, but the government wouldn't suddenly increase funding if these types of schemes didn't exist. It smacks of cutting off your nose to spite your face!! Tescos have committed to spending a certain amount of money for every €10 spent, ie per token. If customers are not passing these tokens on to schools then its only the children who lose. It would be stupid if people were doing their shopping in Tesco solely to collect the tokens, but if you're doing your shopping there anyway then whats the harm? I have no connection to Tesco, and don't even have any children, but always make sure that I take the tokens when offered. There's always a parent or two in work very willing to take them off my hands!!
 
hfp said:
I understand that schools don't want to be seen to be promoting a particular company, and don't want children pressured into having to collect tokens, but this policy just seems daft to me. Yes the scheme is great advertising for Tesco, and its helping to fill a funding gap, but the government wouldn't suddenly increase funding if these types of schemes didn't exist. It smacks of cutting off your nose to spite your face!! Tescos have committed to spending a certain amount of money for every €10 spent, ie per token. If customers are not passing these tokens on to schools then its only the children who lose. It would be stupid if people were doing their shopping in Tesco solely to collect the tokens, but if you're doing your shopping there anyway then whats the harm? I have no connection to Tesco, and don't even have any children, but always make sure that I take the tokens when offered. There's always a parent or two in work very willing to take them off my hands!!
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As long as you take part in the scheme, you perpetuate the myth that it Tesco are being great corporate citizens by dropping a few crumbs from the table. By avoiding the scheme, you send a message that schools aren't going to be bought off with a few crumbs.
 
Complainer said:
As long as you take part in the scheme, you perpetuate the myth that it Tesco are being great corporate citizens by dropping a few crumbs from the table. By avoiding the scheme, you send a message that schools aren't going to be bought off with a few crumbs.
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OR, by avoiding the scheme you just increase the great corporate giant's profits, because they're not paying out as much to schools!!

Don't get me wrong, I understand that this is mainly just cheap advertising for the company, and that the value of the tokens are entirely disproportionate to the amount spent on shopping by parents, but even if a school only gets a few calculators out of it, I still think it's worth taking part.

btw, a quick google search has shown that Tesco has paid out €16 million to date, don't know about anyone else, but I wouldn't call that 'a few crumbs', even if it is only a small percentage of their profit.

(I really do promise that I have no affiliation with Tesco, I just know of plenty of schools that are very grateful for any additional resources they can get at all!!)
 
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