I run a national Education Consultancy - AMA

[Educationexpert]

My DH and I own a company that is one of the main providers of tuition, support, mock exams and papers. Our main market is 11+.

If your child has studied for the 7+, 11+, 13+ it is highly likely you’ve used our products. I won’t name us at all because I don’t want to advertise in any way.

We also are contracted by some of the exam boards for independent statistical analysis to apply age standardisation for 11+.

So ask me anything: I can speak about private v state, private tuition, costs, the inner workings of education and the experience we’ve had with DfE who we have a close relationship with.

No idea if anyone will find this interesting but education is a hot topic right now on Mumsnet!

Do you think the overall standard of education in the UK would improve if we did away with private schools and grammar schools?

Really interesting. How did you get into this?

Now this is the job I want! How did you get into it? What’s the income like? Were you previously teachers?

Are you hiring?

My DC did 11+ (London, inde and grammar) in the last few years. I’ve always wondered how the private schools make their decisions - do you have any insight?

The grammars have strict rules and it’s purely by marks plus (sometimes) age weighting and catchment. The private schools talk about how they understand DC from primaries may be less well prepared than those from preps, and that they’re interested in the whole child. In your experience, is that really the case?

OP - you do know you're supposed to answer our questions, don't you?

Do you think it's fair that grammar schools get to arbitrarily decide their catchment areas (or lack of) given this can lead to "skimming" talented students from across the country rather than serving their local community? Creates inflated scores, higher GCSE results and reputation etc but it's meaningless if it's all down to the students higher starting ability, not to the school adding value.

Sorry all - I couldn’t access my account at all but I’m back in and will finally respond!!

Do you do GCSE work too? The idea of the 11 plus is totally foreign to some parts of the country.

No, I do not. If only state education existed, you would still have pockets of areas driving out certain groups. The wealthier areas would attract the “brighter” children because tutoring would become a staple. Some schools in areas with better funding would pay teachers more (you already see this in academies) or have more attractive benefits. You would also still have religious exclusions which would become more prominent.

Wealthy parents will always find a way to give their children the best. I also mean the ultra wealthy, those that are the heads of banks, those in government etc.

This is based on my opinion though.

I was a pupil premium student who achieved very well and became the poster child for a few things. I began helping an exam board for 11+ on their “levelling up” scheme.

I then became a data scientist and have worked in fintech for most of my time. Then I married a teacher… we built the business together based on the gaps we kept seeing.

My husband teaches Maths and is very anti-private (ironic) and uses the company to try and make maths more reachable.

The business turns six figures. We only use contractors and do not have employees yet, but will soon due to now not having enough time (expecting our first child)

The scope is easily into seven figures, as some of our partners do that we align with.

As part of our job, we meet with all the schools we tutor for as we also make exams and run mocks.

The indies have a few different ways of working depending on which ones. For some of the most expensive schools, they can always find a gap for a student who is international and very wealthy, provided you pass the entrance exam. I’ve known a student who didn’t quite pass, but his father was head of a bank, so they made an allowance.

In general for the normal middle class, decisions come down to score + social interaction. There’s a few psychological behaviours that are looked for during interviews - group / individual. Dependent on the age of taking the interview, will decide how they approach this. They also do care what the parents do for a living and this does have an impact.

I strongly believe in catchment areas. I think they are vital for keeping areas in check - where we live is a major catchment area but they allow a % OOC. The issue is two fold: 1) transportation into the area increases, the area can’t sustain increased urban traffic and pressures. 2) children befriend those that live hours away and cannot socialise easily out of hours.

However, the catchment areas often do not make sense for some schools. This causes an issue for those 10 mins from the school but considered out of catchment. Areas where you need higher scores to get in OOC result in heavily tutored children which pushes up the mean of the overall results, disadvantaging those in catchment. Remember, all standardisation uses mean and SD to arrive at the final score.

The other issue is that in grammar areas, the other local comps suffer as they cream off the top talent. However, most of our teachers (inc DH) work in these grammars, I can definitely tell you they do not have the best teachers. DH went to a failing school to improve it, the teachers there were amazing but had a mission themselves. My point is, the teaching at independent and grammars is NOT better. The class sizes at grammars are the same as comps. The difference is always parental input.

The biggest impact you can have on your child’s education is your involvement.

Yes, we do GCSE and A Level - but our main work here is private tuition. We have a two year waiting list for this.

DH has just begun running free revision classes in the local community for GCSE. We mainly work with Maths and English.

I cannot emphasise enough the importance of a pass in Maths. It is the most beneficial qualification in life. Maths is used everywhere.

Would you send your own child to an independent/grammar school and why?

We would send our child to the grammar locally as it’s 1) our closest school 2) I went there and 3) it’s in the top of the country. If my child wasn’t smart enough, the local comps are decent too.

I wouldn’t send my child to private as I don’t see the benefit. Unless you’re going to the top privates or live in a terrible area with special measures schools only, then the advantage isn’t there. I know many feel passionate about this so I’ll be careful what I say.

However, I’ll leave you this fact: our biggest clientele is privately educated children. From the top independents, I’d say at least 50% of a year 11 class have a private tutor.

What is your view on tutoring to get into a grammar school, and if so how much do you think is appropriate?

A friend is head of pastoral care in one of the top grammars and is very anti 'heavy' 11 plus tutoring, as he says these children seriously struggle to keep up with the schools expectations (cue issue with mental health etc). I asked him if he would want his daughter to attend his school and he said 'only if she is a natural genius' and that he wouldn't want her there if she needed heavy tutoring.

(I'm using heavy tutoring to make it clear that I don't mean a few preparatory sessions to get some experience with how the papers are laid out etc).

I live in a grammar area, my daughter is in year 1, and school mums are already taking about getting their kids onto tutor waiting lists so that they can definitely start in year 4... (it's probably clear that in my view if you need that much help to pass the entrance exam, then the school is not the right place for you)

You mentioned you’re a data scientist. What data do you consider most important when choosing a school - especially a secondary. Would you prioritise progress 8 over raw exam results? Does absence data matter?

My view is that tutoring has become almost essential - but this doesn’t need to be done through external help. If a child is bright and a parent understands the curriculum, it’s possible to teach at home.

I am very against heavy tutoring - it DOES create an issue further down the line, but for many I understand it. If the choice is a Bad School or the Grammar, you’ll probably be tutoring your child forever anyway. You may as well put them amongst better behaved children with parents that care than in a Bad School where they may be “corrupted”.

The best approach to 11+ though is technique. I’ve seen the brightest students not get enough because they can’t handle exam pressure / timings. This is why mocks are imperative in my opinion.

We also take waiting list applicants this early. We don’t allow any child to begin until year 4 but our preference is year 5. If you’d asked me 5 years ago I’d say you shouldn’t need this much tutoring. With COVID, the children doing their 11+ now and in a few years are SO behind.

A lot of the teachers in primary schools are using the term “feral” to describe how children are now. The impact of COVID has been huge and it’s truly going to be a failed generation. I don’t blame any parent for doing what they feel necessary.

I strongly believe Progress 8 to be the most helpful data. However, it goes so much deeper.

Results aren’t an indicator of a school’s true ability. The children are better behaved, teachers get to the point quicker, if they’re bad teachers, parents hire tutors. Those that get into the schools from more disadvantaged backgrounds who end up with the bad teachers are the ones who fall through the gaps. OFSTED is also the most useless data available. I always roll my eyes when I read the education threads on here about the “outstanding” school.

I am also a “feeling” personality. I believe you get the right feel for a school when you visit. Decisions should be made around distance, time to/from, and extra curriculars. Aside from that, Progress 8 is a very important indicator and very interesting.

Break this data down by ethnicity and it is pretty interesting. Chinese ethnicity is the only one that continues to thrive despite poverty. Every other group falls down. Those with strong cultural familial support continue to do better.

What fails a child is the parent. I strongly believe the issues in schools would be so much lesser if parents were less gentle with approach and more disciplined.

My DH has been attacked a few times in schools. It is always by the same type of person / background.

However, I’ll leave you this fact: our biggest clientele is privately educated children. From the top independents, I’d say at least 50% of a year 11 class have a private tutor.

I’ve heard similar stats before. Do you think this is because the standard of teaching is low, or because expectations are higher? Generally you would expect a considerable portion of private parents to be the pushiest!

The grammar discussion is really interesting. We aren’t in a grammar catchment, but are just outside so would almost certainly get in on distance. But I similarly worry where the line is between reasonable required exam prep vs heavy teaching to push kids beyond their natural abilities.

For the amount of tutoring, part of it is that there is nothing exceptional about the teaching. I KNOW there’s great teachers at privates, but there are far more amazing teachers at state schools. Privates aren’t regulated in the same way as state schools and I could never send my child there - we can easily afford it but it isn’t even something we’d think about. Having your child in a decent state & private tuition will yield better results AND be better long term. We are currently working with DfE to implement better protocols and opportunities for state school applicants - pushing the date of consideration of state from sixth form to majority of time spent years 7-11 (the system is often played by those in the know). I genuinely feel for the standard private student, they will end up “disadvantaged” for going to that type of institution.

Additionally, they need tutors as private schools aren’t actually that hard to get into - in terms of ratios to the best grammars, this means the standard isn’t as high amongst peers, but there will be some students who are exceptional - you need to keep up with these students - 9s are the targets and if you fall behind you lose scholarships/places.

This is interesting and I expected more questions when I looked again today.

Do you get any feeling for behaviour in schools (is it getting worse?) and if that is impacting learning and driving more people to look at external tutoring?

@Educationexpert and Mr EducationExpert - do you think there's a problem with the way we teach maths in primary school? Would Kier Starmer's 'phonics for maths' plan work?