Scheme Evaluation Card
In Brief
Recommendation: (details)
The role of a school secretary is not to distribute commercial magazines aimed at children and parents. We recommend that schools refuse to place Primary Times in children’s’ schoolbags.
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Primary Times: Primary Times Magazine
Name:
Primary Times Magazine
Sponsor:
Primary Times and various advertisers.
Objective:
“Primary Times is a What's on - Where to go - What to do Guide for parents who have 4 - 11 year old children in full time education.”
Classification:
Sponsored Educational Material featuring competitions
Year: 2005
Past Record: [top]
Primary Times was launched as a magazine for parents, pupils and teachers of primary schools in 1989 in Britain and at the time of writing has 40 franchises, five of them in Ireland – Dublin; Kildare, Meath & Wicklow; Cork & Waterford; West of Ireland; Belfast & Co. Antrim.
Materials: [top]
Schools receive 4 editions of Primary Times each year with magazines being delivered to school secretaries. The magazines comprise of a directory of events listings, articles on parenting, book reviews, commercial features, and a large body of advertisements. A single 23-page magazine may contain 27 individual advertisements as well as a classified ads section.
Comments: [top]
Approximately 160,000 copies of each issue of Primary Times are circulated to Irish primary schools (1.5 million throughout Ireland and Britain).
Magazines are allocated to individual classes to be taken home by children. Advertisers pay between €175 and €1,500 to have their advertisement placed in the magazines which reader surveys found are referred to 7 times per issue at home. Recent advertisements have included those from
- McDonalds’ Lift and Strike
- Toy Story on Ice
- Tesco Computers for Schools
- Cheestrings
- Shopping centres
- Summer camps and theatre schools
The marketing value of this approach is evident in the comment by one advertiser that:
" We have found the magazine very effective as a vehicle to target school going children and their parents ''
Recommendation: [top]
The role of a school secretary is not to distribute commercial magazines aimed at children and parents. We recommend that schools refuse to place Primary Times in children’s’ schoolbags.
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High |
Fair |
Low |
Curricular
Relevance |
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Logo/Brand
Presence |
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Influence
on Spending
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We regard Primary Times as being of negligible educational relevance and heavily orientated towards commercial advertising. These advertisements serve to reinforce existing commercial schemes and, we believe, pressurise parents by promoting expensive private courses/camps and “The Must have Toy” in Christmas editions.
The assumption on the part of Primary Times that schools will blithely act a distribution agent for commercial content is considered disrespectful and exploitative. We request that parents who find copies Primary Times in their child’s schoolbag return them to the school immediately and explain why they feel this is an unsuitable medium for commercial marketing.
The provision of a local events guide or community services directory may be achieved through the use of a folder in the school lobby/entrance area into which all relevant notices are placed. Parents may then consult this material as they choose.
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