Photo: TheTelegraph.co.uk
When most schools market themselves as a pinnacle of education, promoting values as self-improvement, imagination and discipline, one private school from East Sussex boasts of being able to turn students into future Jaguar customers.
Stay with us: ahead of the start of the new school year, the private Vinehall School put out ads in local media and on billboards, hoping to encourage regular Joes and Janes to enlist their kids there. Their strategy might have worked on paper, but in reality, it turned out as a huge mess.
You can see the ad in the image attached. It shows a kid daydreaming about fancy cars – particularly about the Jaguar he sees in the headmaster’s parking spot, when he visits Vinehall School. You see, his dad drives a Volvo and he’s rather ashamed of it. He wishes his father owned a Jag, too.
So he gets an idea and begs with his dad to enlist him at this school (and naturally, to pay the huge tuition fees, which, let it be said, would have probably bought him a more expensive car than a Volvo in the end).
The kid moves on to achieve great things in life and, when his father retires, he’s so financially well-off that he buys him a Jaguar. It doesn’t matter that this wasn’t his father’s dream but his own, he gets it done.
Outrage was immediate and harsh: in a world where the quality education alone should be enough to “sell” a school, private or not, it’s hilarious to see such a tone-deaf, materialistic ad. Children shouldn’t be taught to want to go to school so they could buy fancy stuff later, but rather encouraged to follow their passions, critics said, particularly on social media, The Telegraph informs.
Consequently, the headmaster of the school, presumably the guy driving a Jaguar, has issued an apology. Volvo-driving moms and dads can keep driving their Volvos.
“I very deeply regret the widespread offense caused by the recent open day advertisement. It was wholly misguided, and should never have seen the light of day. I must stress it is in no way a reflection of the ethos of our school and the worthwhile work we do here,” Joff Powis, head at Vinehall School, says.
“We are taking a long hard look at how it came to be created in the first place, but as head, I must take full responsibility for its appearance, and can only apologize for such an unfortunate error of judgment,” Powis adds. “Vinehall prides itself on being a friendly, inclusive place, where the values of modesty and broad-mindedness are at the forefront of our guidance and teaching.”
You can see the ad in the image attached. It shows a kid daydreaming about fancy cars – particularly about the Jaguar he sees in the headmaster’s parking spot, when he visits Vinehall School. You see, his dad drives a Volvo and he’s rather ashamed of it. He wishes his father owned a Jag, too.
So he gets an idea and begs with his dad to enlist him at this school (and naturally, to pay the huge tuition fees, which, let it be said, would have probably bought him a more expensive car than a Volvo in the end).
The kid moves on to achieve great things in life and, when his father retires, he’s so financially well-off that he buys him a Jaguar. It doesn’t matter that this wasn’t his father’s dream but his own, he gets it done.
Outrage was immediate and harsh: in a world where the quality education alone should be enough to “sell” a school, private or not, it’s hilarious to see such a tone-deaf, materialistic ad. Children shouldn’t be taught to want to go to school so they could buy fancy stuff later, but rather encouraged to follow their passions, critics said, particularly on social media, The Telegraph informs.
Consequently, the headmaster of the school, presumably the guy driving a Jaguar, has issued an apology. Volvo-driving moms and dads can keep driving their Volvos.
“I very deeply regret the widespread offense caused by the recent open day advertisement. It was wholly misguided, and should never have seen the light of day. I must stress it is in no way a reflection of the ethos of our school and the worthwhile work we do here,” Joff Powis, head at Vinehall School, says.
“We are taking a long hard look at how it came to be created in the first place, but as head, I must take full responsibility for its appearance, and can only apologize for such an unfortunate error of judgment,” Powis adds. “Vinehall prides itself on being a friendly, inclusive place, where the values of modesty and broad-mindedness are at the forefront of our guidance and teaching.”
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