Tutoring in seondary schools

I agree with you OldMother, especially when it comes to post 16 education. I just know that when it comes to GCSEs all a school cares about is the number of pupils who reach the magic number of passes to get the next grade up in an ofsted inspection.

What self contradictions to 'justify' a 'professional' rate of £25 per hour to teach tricks without explaining the subject!

"One of th first things I do as a tutor is to establish whether a student wishes to continue with Maths."

"you teach understanding first but if they just don't get it after repeated attempts - - -"

As I said earlier, the only reason many so called 'professional' tutors are able to charge exorbitant rates is the superficial demand for their services, and often the superficial impression of 'professionalism'.

But, Bunbaker, I was refering to university students who still maintain this attitude despite the fact that a degree should be about the love of learning your subject area and developing independent thought with respect to the area, many simply want to know how to get through the exams! I should say though that I am not against tuition where it is helping students to get to grips with concepts they struggle with and to offer additional support. I am against coaching them to pass the exam without fundamental understanding of the subject - yes that means hard work and putting in the hours, but the consequences of teaching students to pass exams without that background knowledge is they end up with exam marks which do not reflect their ability in the subject and where that ability is called upon later, they ultimately struggle at later stages too.

There is a difference between a student struggling to get a c who needs that grade to get onto a course at sixth form. They are not going to continue with mathematics and a few tricks can make the difference. You try and teach the understanding but when it doesn't work you go with it. This is different to teaching same tricks to a student who wants to do alevel. To be honest, a student struggling to get a c with tuition is highly unlikely to be in a position to continue withmaths at alevel.

There isn't a maths teacher in the land who doesn't do this. you teach understanding first but if they just don't get it after repeated attempts, you use knowledge to get them the maximum grade possible. How is this wrong? Would you expect anything else of a tutor? Would you like me to put the beauty and purity of mathematics above their need to get the heft grade possible? Is that professional?

I am very professional and gave excellent

"I get so many students in revision sessions wanting to know whether they need to know this or that in terms of will it be on the exam? They often don't want to know if they think it won't be tested this time, even if that means they will struggle with other concepts later."

This is because of the pressure exerted by the school. DD's school is only satisfactory because its GCSE results are only satisfactory. The headteacher is desperate for the school to be "good" at the next ofsted inspection and just wants more puils with A - C results, so I don't suppose she cares how they get there.

How does a child truly know if they never intend to use Maths techniques again? They are only young.

All they really know is that they don't currently fancy doing A level.

Actually, if they started to understand it and love it (which one to one might achieve if the previosu teaching had been poor) then maybe even that view would change!

"This is what makes me a professional and is what my students happily pay extra for."

"If they never intend to use it again I will teach the tricks that get an answer without unserstanding (sic)."

£25 per hour for teaching tricks to get maths answers correct without understanding the questions is totally UNPROFESSIONAL in my opinion, whatever the student is going to do later!

Coming back to 'professional' bankers, it turned out that they too were using 'tricks' to run their business while charging exorbitant rates to their customers!

£10 per hour charged by an apt university student would achieve exactly the same result! But this 'non-professional' would actually show a much better regard for the student.

One of th first things I do as a tutor is to establish whether a student wishes to continue with Maths. If they never intend to use it again I will teach the tricks that get an answer without unserstanding. I never teach these tricks to students who will need the understanding in the future as it is not in their best interests - they need the understanding. A lot of my students have had previous tutors in the past and there are poor ones and tutors who will make wild promises to get business. I also teach students how to work independently and how to approch past papers. Amazing how many studenys dont know how to use past papers effectively.

That sounds like good parental support and encouragement, pushed. Getting children to think, argue through things and develop a love of learning is great. Learning how to pass exams for the sake of passing exams is not.

I get so many students in revision sessions wanting to know whether they need to know this or that in terms of will it be on the exam? They often don't want to know if they think it won't be tested this time, even if that means they will struggle with other concepts later.

The other day DD had to do an essay on the muslim faith. She wrote pages of regurgitated facts from the Internet. I told her that some of these 'facts' are told from a Western viewpoint and that she needed to include her opinion and not just facts.

She came out of that 'tutoring' session with a greater understanding of the muslim faith and that it isn't all about keeping women down and blowing themselves up.

Yes at 11+ it is a case of teaching to the test. Yes at secondary school it can be about helping struggling kids. But it can also be about preparing a child for 'the independent enquiry required of them at university'

This thread is very interesting.

I wonder, if parents/pupils are relying on tutors to get them through examinations, whether this isn't fostering the "teach to the test" mentality even more than when "teach to the test" is just going on in schools. Hence school pupils are very ill-equipped indeed for the independent enquiry required of them at university.

Ah, now I see.

The thing is, would they need tutoring to bring them up to the standard they need to get their degree, if they hadn't already been tutored to the max to get their A grades at A'level? I know we are having to look at providing remedial lectures over the summer to cover the gap for incoming students from what we expect them to know when they come in and what they actually do know.

The point is that it is not just A level students being tutored, but undergraduates who gained admission with A grades.

BeingFluffy, I am not sure I understand your point? (I am not at said well known college in London)

OldMotherDismass, I have a colleague who graduated in maths a few years ago. He tutors current undergraduates - maths and medical students (who need maths help) on a mainly voluntary basis - these are mostly siblings of his friends or others referred via word of mouth. These are students of a well known college in London which I believe asks for straight As.

At my DCs (state, pretty good) secondary, there is a lot of emphasis put on "independent learning" especially after yr 10. I completely agree that this is essential if they are to cope at Uni, I do think that some find it easier than others and generally boys don't manage it as well as girls (until they have learned from a little failure). Schools don't always have the time to do this properly and tailor it to a specific child. That is where a tutor can help, if they are any good, they too will encourage this and actually teach a child 'how' to revise. This is what my 2 DSs have learned from their tutors along with the actual subject tuition.

Good point, OldMother.

I think that by spoon feeding our children and giving them no chance to learn by themselves (there seems barely time given school and tutoring according to this thread) we're not helping them in the long run.

I am a university lecturer at a university that demands A-grades to get onto the highly competitive course. We constantly struggle with 1st year failure rates from students who seemingly have straight-A's at A'level, but I just wonder how many of them achieved their straight A's from intensive tutoring and then struggle once they are left to their own devices on a very demanding degree?

This situation has improved somewhat since we introduced technical interviews where students are probed on their basic understanding of the subject area - something a tutor can only prepare them for to a limited extent as questions can change from one interviewer to the next. However, we do find that students struggle with subjects they really shouldn't having achieved A's at A'level.

I therefore wonder whether it is really so good for them in the long run?

"Seems to me that the schools aren't doing their job properly."

Yep. DD's school has a lot of high attainers in year 7. Given that 90% of the intake arrive at school with levels 4 and 5, the school massively underachieves with its GCSE results. It is the best high school in our LA and the only one in our catchment area. We can't afford private school but are prepared to pay out for a tutor if necessary.

I worry a lot about the fact that so many DC at my DD's school have tutors. I think it makes (some of) the teachers lazy and complacent, as the DCs achieve whatever they do! And then you get a negative spiral going on, where more and more tutors are needed to keep DCs achieving at the level parents expect, and teachers get more and more complacent and kid themselves that it is due to their hard efforts that the DC are achieving.

"Every child I know at hothouse schools have a tutor, that?s why league tables are a waste of time it?s not the school teaching anymore it?s the parents/tutor."

Gosh I do so agree!

other - As I said above, not everyone tutor because their kids are struggling.

I am truly shocked at how many of your kids get tutored outside of school!

Seems to me that the schools aren't doing their job properly. I am particularly shocked that selective and independent school pupils 'need' to get tutored. The 'selected' ones should be bright enough (having been selected via entrance exam) and the private school parents are already paying lots of money to have their kids educated!

I'm not British myself (German) and have never, ever heard this going on in Germany, certainly not when I was there (I was completely in charge of my schoolwork, my homework, how/when to revise - my parents wouldn't have dreamed of getting involved! They were, however, lovely, helpful parents who totally supported whatever I did ).

Bunbaker I dont disagree with you, and indeed paying school fees is tutoring in another form. I would also consider a tutor if I felt that either of my children were struggling to acquire key numeracy and literacy skills. My daughter is dyslexic, and some extra help in English both at home and in school at a key stage has really helped her performance in all subjects and her enjoyment of school. If I felt she was slipping again I would want her to have help.

Tutoring is not much talked about but my observation of affluent selective schools is that for maths it seems to be most frequent in the top and bottom sets. I get the latter, but worry about the former. Fine if it is that, say, a child will need to get exceptional maths results in order to read engineering. However I am slightly frightened by the competitive tutoring in place to either keep a child at the top of the year group or to achieve all A*. Not that these are not fine achievements but I suspect there is a cost.

I dont really want my relationship with my teenagers to be dominated by an effort to over-achieve in school. I want DC to work hard, be diligent, and get there on their own efforts. Because that is what they will have to do in adult life. I want them to gain the emotional intelligence that allows them to understand that if you dont work you dont achieve your goals, that you sometimes fail or disappoint yourself but you need to pick yourself up and start again, and that work-life balance is important.

They might get better results if they had a tutor taking them through work they have covered in school. However not having a tutor means you have to listen in class and write good notes. I also wonder about the mini-renaissance children brought up to believe that all A*s and Grade 8 in piano are what count. I sometimes suspect that some use the same criteria and find it difficult to relate to less accomplished children. Real life is not all about grades and qualifications, and unless those results are backed by underlying intelligence, self management and social and emotional skills, an over structured and disciplined approach to teenage learning could presumably lead to problems in the future.

"kids who really only got into the school because they were over tutored, and then need lots of help to stay anywhere near the rest of the class"

Sweeping Generalisation Alert :o Not all parents get tutors because their DCs are struggling or because they are ultra competitive.

We got DS a Spanish tutor, not because he was struggling at school but because he found it too easy. He has a talent for languages so why not nuture it?

If your DS showed signs of being an exceptional football player then would you not want to nurture that by getting him onto some professional coaching scheme as opposed to his kick-the-ball-around-for-30-mins afterschool football club?

If the answer is yes then why are academic stuff any different?