Fifth of state school pupils have a private tutor at GCSE level

[Unpaidviewer]

From the article below in the Sunday Times. When do we accept that the education system is failing our children and what can we do about it?

Is this any different or better than children attending private school? I know i will do everything in my power for my child to get a decent education but I know some posters on the private schools threads seem to think it's immoral to give your child any kind of advantage over others.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/education/article/gsce-a-level-private-tutoring-revision-camps-wxfmf629

Children are leaving primary unable to read properly and unable to do basic maths.
They don't know how to learn.
By this point negativity is setting in with self image and being left behind Andy boredom in class
It compounds and it's hard to pull back and change that feeding into poor behaviour which then impacts the entire class.
We need many different strategy to help teach in primary school, more specialist teacher and diagnosis and actual meaningful changes in primary. More

I pay tutors for all 3 a level subjects for a state school student who is in classes
of 20+ . It costs me less than the independent school did that my child was at until year 11. Would have stayed in independent school class of 5 with no tutor if fees hadn’t gone up 20%.

We pay for an English tutor for my year 10 daughter. She was regularly achieving only around 20% in class and losing confidence. It meant she was placed in a lower set, which is set to her capability but the class is tough class often disrupted.

With so many essay based subjects it’s important to at least get the basics - she is on track now for a 5 hoping for a 6.

No regrets, I wish I could trust the system to help her achieve but sadly even with amazing English teachers without us supporting her she wouldn’t be able to get a good enough mark to open the door for the next stage.

I live in a deprived area with terrible schools and a very high failure rate. The school mine attend has a real issue retaining staff. In a day if 6 lessons 2 lessons minimum are free- no teaching at all. I scraped and saved for my eldest to attend Easter tuition for GCSE science. She is one of the two in her year that got a-c. The other 27 did not. In set 2.
I did what I could to offset the shit schools available to me as a person who can’t afford a home anywhere where there are good state schools.

I could weep that people from around here will never get out. It’s a triple whammy of bad education, no opportunities, and no access to higher education that poor working class children face . In my area employment was decimated by the move away from manufacturing industry to service industry and nothing done to prevent mass disenfranchisement and underemployment. I wish all the children had the opportunity my dd had, or at least got the education the government promise to give them. But they don’t. It’s incredibly hard to escape the poverty trap and I’ll do what I can to help my children get out.

I have 32 children in one of my gcse classes. 3 of those children are really disruptive. If I could teach them all 1:1 or small groups they would fly! A really bright group overall but constantly interrupted.

Most children I know who end up with a tutor are those already really high achieving in order to push grades to highest possible or those that have not done enough work up until year 11 (for various reasons)

Small class sizes get better results. I'd love to teach some of the kids I have in large lessons 1:1 or smaller groups. I know I could get better results! Unfortunately my subject isn't a popular one for extra tutoring otherwise I'd consider it as a proper job!

Many teachers are leaving the profession and tutoring full-time.

It’s not necessarily to do with how good or bad a teacher or school is. It’s just that a DC might need more time to go through certain topics for specific subjects like maths.

That's interesting @2025mustbebetter
, what subjects are you teaching?

because at my ds2 school. They won't tolerate any misdemeanour or insolence or anything in set one or two, of eg maths.

My oldest son was in set one of maths and was struggling and they threatened to put him down to set 2. he was not happy about this so he worked really hard and he was determined not to be put into down into set two, and he improved his grades enough to stay into set one.

I don't know what kind of school you teaching at. and I don't know what subject you teach.

but a lot of schools round here they just won't tolerate any insolence or problems in set 1, or two.

so it depends on what school you have and what subject you're teaching, because quite frankly what you say won't be tolerated in the Surrey schools round here.

Few parents I know need private tutors. It's the rarity rather than the norm.

saying that the schools around here are very very good, all of them, so maybe that's because we don't live in a particularly deprived area, and I appreciate that.

"Is this any different or better than children attending private school?"

My son did his A-levels at a comprehensive.

There were 27 people in his further maths class. His teacher was 72, and had cognitive issues from a bad bout of COVID. He regularly missed classes because of ill health, and the school often wouldn't be able to find anyone to cover, so my son spent a lot of time just working alone online.

His physics class struggled to get lab time - the school had taken on so many additional pupils to make up for funding cuts, that kids were being taught in tents in the car park. Access to the labs was very difficult because of school overcrowding, and the labs were poorly equipped.

Son had 1 hour of online tutoring once a week.

He did well at A level and went off to university to study engineering. His girlfriend who is also an engineering student who he met when he started his course went to a top private girls' school. She did Further Maths A level in a class of 6. The school has state of the art lab facilities.

I think suggesting that state school pupils who have even an hour of tutoring in every subject once a week are no worse off than kids in private schools (who also often have private tutoring in addition to being at private school) is deranged.

Class sizes in private schools are literally half or less on average than classes in state schools. Children get vastly more individual attention in every lesson, every day.

And the objection to private schools isn't an objection to parents wanting to do the best they can for their children. It's an acknowledgement of outrageous inequality of opportunity and elitism in our education system, which is unfair to children and morally indefensible as a system.

Literally how the exams are set up to work.....

@Unpaidviewer That Times article is behind a paywall and I can't read it.

I would like to be able to, so if someone can post a link or summary or something, that would be great.

And what about those not in sets 1 and 2?

Would add, that the biggest problem affecting British state schools is the impact of social selection on the learning culture of schools.

It's so wrong.

I did, it felt like my daughter was invisible. If I hadn't she wouldn't have got as 5 in English and maths and we needed to move on. She is now at A levels and had had really patchy teaching in one subject due to staff illness. I am currently paying £60 a week, but it's cheaper than a foundation year at uni if she fails.

I think tutors are great, it made a huge difference, I would definitely recommend them, if you can afford them

A fairer system of pass or fail rather than grading in a bell curve would help level any advantage caused by tutoring (or private education). It wouldn’t help greatly in underfunded schools, but it would certainly make things more equal.

dd y12, does maths and FM at state sixth form. For DofE volunteering, she helps tutor younger students in the school. Good for dd to feel like she is mastering a subject, good experience, helping her get her award. They do it with many of their students, deprived diverse state school.

Are they? Are exams set up so that the failures are always the poor kids? Or is it supposed to be the stupidest that fail? Surely ideologically the pass and fail rate should be based on merit not income/ circumstance?

In practice those who fail are overwhelmingly the poor and disadvantaged. And it’s not because they are stupid or deserve to fail. It’s because the system is rigged and or broken.

My DH has been a private tutor for years and the vast majority of his school age tutees have been from private schools

Is it any different in private?

the private school my nephew went to insisted on tutoring if they were struggling.

nephew is middle of the road academically so was told he needed tutors as well. Not uncommon apparently.

My DS’s state school have told me if I can afford it to pay for a tutor in maths to do so as they are to thinly spread to help with where he is behind! I’m lucky we can at a stretch and means he can’t do the big school trip in yr 10 but he needs a maths gcse.

Due to the way that exams are graded there will always be a set amount of pupils that will fail.

Gove did this when he insisted that results were graded on the bell curve and not on a fixed percentage pass.

just seen that Hercisback1 posted the exact same thing

Oh, I see. Nobody's going to post a readable version then?

In that case, I can only make assumptions about where a newspaper such as The Times got the statistics for their article...

'A fifth of state school pupils whose parents read The Times and responded to the questionnaire have a private tutor'. Is that it?

A link was posted to a non-paywalled version at 15:04 today.

I know private schooled kids who also had tutors.
I found if kids are coasting along well in state school with mid level grades and not getting into trouble, they are pretty much ignored. The bright kids are encouraged and pushed and the lower grade kids get a lot of support (as it should be)
Tutors really help push those middle kids up a grade or two.

I can't give you statistics, but I can tell you that I have state school colleagues who make extra money by tutoring privately educated pupils.