The entrenching of competitive values within the public-market field of secondary education has led to the formation of academically focused institutions whose budgets and reputations are based on gaining large numbers of students who have the best chance of attaining highly in public examinations. Although parents have become savvier about their consumer rights, and as regards the use of advertisements that schools produce, the medium and long term impact of the deployment of the majority of marketisation tools on students has yet to be assessed. A consequence of this over-marketing process may be that some students prove to be less successful academically after transfer. If the government continues with a policy based on the market model, the impact of marketing tools that schools implement needs to be assessed so that parents can be secure in the knowledge that first and foremost their child is happy and safe at school.