Joe Jingles Rip Off

Zynks

My third child is about to start doing the Joe Jingles thing at her creche. It will cost us €7 extra every week.

Looking back over the years we might have spent about €3,000 with the other two kids at today's prices.

Once a few years back we questioned this practice and decided our kid didn't need it, but when we found out he stayed at the creche office while the class was ongoing, we gave in because we didn't want him to feel like an outsider without that stupid sticker. But I never got over the suspicion this was a rip off.

Today I came across the ad for Joe Jingles franchise opportunities here

Here is how they describe the service:

Jo Jingles are pre-school music classes for children in Ireland aged 6 months - 5 years. (Classes available for children aged up to 7 and 8 years in some areas).
The aim is to stimulate interest and enjoyment of music and movement with a series of varied programmes.
-Playing percussion instruments
-Movement and dancing
-Action songs
-Nursery Rhymes
-Educational themes
-Learning is fun!

During the classes, which are run mainly during school terms, children are encouraged to:

-Develop language skills
-Improve physical co-ordination
-Gain confidence and independence
-Interact with other children and gain social skills

The first questions that comes to my mind are:
- which of these activities can't be provided by a trained creche or Montessori teacher?
- If there are 15 kids in the class, they are making €100 per hour, once a week, every week - where is the value

Anyway, I read a bit more, and found more interesting bits:

Jo Jingles currently has 6 franchisees in Ireland. The classes are well received by parents and children alike as a new, fun approach to pre-school education.

Well received by parents? Not by me to be honest. What about you?

Next:

How we support you...

On-going promotional support is provided and all franchisees are regularly updated on promotions and advertising organised by head office, both regional and national.

All new franchisees receive at least one week's comprehensive training before starting Jo Jingles classes and this includes: everything you need to know about Jo Jingles, managing your own business, accounts, advertising & pr, and class programmes. A detailed training manual is supplied to each franchisee. The initial training is followed up with regular training meetings, and provides on-going support and business ideas for the franchisees.

One week training? And that includes a lot of non class related training. Does this mean that anyone could do this with 2 or three days training? Why don't the staff of the creche take of these courses? Or, surely, if they are there for the weekly session every week they get more exposure than if they did the training themselves.

But wait, it even gets better:

Finance
The costs and what you get for your money

The price of a Jo Jingles Irish franchise is min.€12,000 up to €14,000 depending, on size of territory (plus a minimum spend of €1,500 on advertising and PR in the first year).

The franchise package includes all the usual benefits, from an exclusive territory and initial/on-going training to an operations manual, class programmes and equipment such as percussion instruments, music books and CD's recorded exclusively for Jo Jingles by well-known presenters from BBC's children's programmes. A local website is also included in the price.

Leaving aside the fact that territorial exclusivity is against EU competition laws, this sounds more like "hey, we found a way to milk money away from tired hard working parents and if you want a share of it, you have to pay big.

A bit further down the ad:

Who's Ideal for Us

Profile of an Ideal Jo Jingles Irish Franchisee


Typically, our franchisees are mothers who have experience of very young children and may have dealt with the pressures of “juggling” a career and home. Applicants do not need to have had any musical training, but ideally should have a good singing voice, a musical background, and a genuine interest in music. They should be bright, energetic, have endless patience, be well organised and have good presentation skills. Above all they need to relate to small children and take pride in being involved in the entertainment and education of pre-school children. A business/sales and marketing background is useful.
Our current franchisees include an ex-paediatric nurse, a former nursery supervisor, a former OFSTED Inspector for nurseries and playgroups, two semi-professional singers, two dance teachers (already running their own dance schools), a former City solicitor, an MBA qualified ex-IT Consultant, ex-college lecturer, a music agent and a number of ex-school teachers. Jo Jingles appeals to a wide variety of people!

Now, if these guys can do it with one week training, what is missing for the staff of the creches to do it themselves.

I am really struggling to make sense out of this other than it is a trap. Ultimately we are being blackmailed into it. This year this will cost me up to €700 with two kids still in the creche. Maybe what we are paying for is a nice coffee break for staff, but I wish I had more of a choice on this.

Does anyone else share these views?

deisemum

I don't agree with these type of groups coming into a creche/playschool/montessori during time you've already paid for. It's like paying twice for the same time.

If these creches etc think they are such a good idea then let them facilitate them at the end of the day or end of session not during time that you've already paid for or get them to discount the fee you've already paid and use that discount to pay for these classes.

I know that a lot of parents are now refusing to pay for these sessions and some creches/montessoris are trying to play the guilt trip on parents by saying your child would be the only one not taking part.

Trained creche/montessori/playschool staff are already trained in how to provide all these benefits and it took them a lot longer than a week to train in them.

bored and tired

of topic slightly, but herself has joined afterschool club in local community centre, for 3ph they get picked up from school, hot lunch/snack, homework completed, and once homework is finnished they get a computer class, and/or soccer game thrown in aswell so long as they are good;),
brilliant service, affordable prices, and child delighted to be spending 2 evenings a week with friends instead of mammy. Common sense among childcare providers that we are not all atm machines at long last.

zoey

Zynks wrote: »

which of these activities can't be provided by a trained creche or Montessori teacher?

Exactly!!
Wow, to be honest I'm in shock that practitioners in a creche feel the need to bring someone else in to do music with the kids. They must really lack imagination and creativity!

John Mason

wow, where do i sign up

Zynks

Thanks for the replies. It gives me more confidence to bring it up at the meeting with parents and teachers.

Oryx

I get suckered into Stretch and Grow, and Playball for my daughter at her creche. I used not mind one class per week, but now its two! I feel like you, that its paying on the double, and you only do it so your kid isnt singled out. After reading your post though, I think I might opt out. I pay through the nose already, and it really is a hard cost to meet on top of what I pay them for creche fees.

axel rose

OK maybe Im naive this but I have never heard of any parent seeing these classes as anything other as money making scams. Why dont some/one of the parents organise a petition to stop these extra activities.
Strength in numbers and all that.

Zynks

axel rose wrote: »

OK maybe Im naive this but I have never heard of any parent seeing these classes as anything other as money making scams. Why dont some/one of the parents organise a petition to stop these extra activities.
Strength in numbers and all that.

I agree with you. The problem is that when is comes to our children it is very hard to be rational, and with creches using guilt strategies it can be hard for us to differentiate a rip-off from something that could provide a benefit to our children (or at least avoid the "damage" of the child being left out of these "very special" classes).

deisemum

Thing is now that the recession is causing huge financial strain for a lot of people you will find a lot of parents are now refusing to pay for these add-ons.

I personally know of several parents who've told the creches/montessoris that their children are attending that they no longer can afford to pay for these classes and guess what they're not the only parents in each of the creches/montessoris in this position. I believe some of these places are dropping these add-ons and reckon more will follow.

Toots

Same here. I think now would be a bad time to set up a Joe Jingles franchise

One girl I work with has even organised a child minding group with her neighbours, basically there's 5 of them and each takes the kids one day a week. Luckily they've all managed to organise it so that it's ok with work, and the few hours a week that they lose pale in comparison to what they are paying for a creche. She was saying that last year her kid was in 3 of these extra class things and it was costing her a fortune, she said the same about not wanting her child to be left out so just paid it and kept her mouth shut.

LolaDub

It would definitely bother me that the child is being sent to the office when the classes are on. Thats a deliberate exclusion of the child from any social interaction and would probably seem to the child that he/she is being punished. Apart from that you have paid for that time for the child to be properly taken care of, not to be sitting in an office on their own.