Mvelo N

Horrible Customer Experience with Spark School

They do not even deserve one star. Spark School is a very horrible institution in all aspects, poor academic support for children who require additional assistance, terrible communication, and inconsiderate staff. If you truly care about your child’s future, do not take them to this school. I deeply regret enrolling my son there. My son was in Grade 11 at Spark Randburg High. Last year, he experienced academic challenges, and one of the teachers recommended that we take him to an educational psychologist to determine whether he had any learning barriers. I took him for the assessment as suggested, and he was diagnosed with a few learning barriers. However, the psychologist recommended that he remain in mainstream schooling and simply be provided with additional support. I emailed the school the psychologist’s report, but they did not even acknowledge receipt. During the exams, they failed to grant my son the additional support recommended by the psychologist, and as a result, he failed Grade 11. My son’s mother went to the school to find out why he was not provided with the recommended support and to request that he be condoned to the next grade. The first thing Mr X, who is part of the school’s decision‑making structure, said that we should deregister our son from Spark and look for a school that could support him. We then reached out to their head office via email, addressed to their Network Operations Manager. She ignored our emails, so we went to the head office in person. When we eventually spoke to her, she showed no real interest in assisting. She simply said they would provide my son with the support he needs and that she would communicate with the school, but she provided no plan, no timelines, and no actionable steps. The school itself was not even aware of any supposed plan. It became clear that the school had no interest in supporting my son. Mr X insisted again that he should leave and find a school that could cater for his needs. We eventually followed his advice because we did not want to cause further stress for our child. We deregistered him from Spark Randburg High as suggested. Now Spark is telling me that I must pay three months’ school fees because, according to the contract, I had to give three months’ notice. They failed my son, pushed him out, and now they want me to pay for it. How does paying for a service that was not delivered make any sense?