Sainsbury’s offers kids bags of help

I was most disappointed – and extremely surprised – to read your article “Schools pan Sainsbury’s scheme” (MW September 22) commenting on the Sainsbury’s Schoolbags promotion.

The view expressed by William Anderson (who, as far as we know, has never made any comment about the scheme to us) of the Schools Consortium appears to be completely out of step with the response we have had directly from schools and head teachers. To date, in the first few weeks more than 5,000 schools have registered with the scheme – completely out-running our expectations. On top of that we have been inundated with calls from schools who have heard about the scheme but have not received their packs.

I would like to draw attention to comments made by Margaret Morrissey of the National Confederation of Parent-Teacher Associations in the Times Educational Supplement (September 8), who stated that the Sainsbury’s scheme is streets ahead of others. “Similar projects usually peg the vouchers to pending a certain amount of money,” she said. “This way children learn that taking care of the environment pays.”

Swaffield Primary School deputy headmaster Gary Cornford says: “We consider the carrier bag-for-vouchers initiative to be a simple and painless way of recycling plastic. Apart from raising awareness of the conservation aspect, the bonus of vouchers for our schools is most welcome. It is particularly good that the vouchers are not linked to specific expenditure as some other schemes are. This allows all families to participate, irrespective of their level of income. The project seems to be ethically sound and we are happy to participate.”

Christopher Leaver

Director of corporate communications

Sainsbury’s

London SEI