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

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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

Not currently as they are still very hard subjects. We used to do foundation and higher in more subjects, many more had coursework and we also used to have short courses.

BTEC and Cambridge nationals used to be more accessible.

At a previous school we had many students doing courses at the local college alongside their core gcse subjects. We had students who did less GCSEs and more functional skills, we had students who didn't do GCSEs at all and were prepared to do this later at colllege, taking level 1 topics instead (gcse is level 2)

This has all but disappeared. Most students now do GCSEs and were expected to make them.

I don't know that use of tutors is evidence of a failing system.

I think there is lots wrong with state education, but I also know people receiving world class private education use tutors too.

I think it's more symptomatic of competition in higher education and for specific professional jobs.

I also think there is an issue with the gateway 4 in English and maths being used as a proxy for employable or to access so many courses, where functional skills could be a better alternative.

DH is a private tutor. His students are often very high achieving but love having the support and really connect with him. He teaches Maths to A Level and people find his methods approachable. I think for a lot of parents they get a tutor just to support rather than because the school isn’t good (we have a lot of grammars and they’d be fine there without tutoring)

State + tutor is a brilliant combination for success.

DH has an abundance of enquiries from the privates. I would guess that privates + tutoring is much higher than 20%.

My DC went to very high performing independent day schools in London. The classes were not small. Behaviour was dealt with and those who could not or would not behave left. We opted for this route because ,from age 8, there was specialist teaching and lots of activities, including sport. We were shocked at the laxity around the basics at their naice cofe primary - spag and maths.

I went to a good girls' grammar school in the 70s. 30 pupils to a class Behaviour was dealt with and those who could not or would not behave left

DH went to a boys comp in Yorkshire in the 70s. 30 pupils to a class Behaviour was dealt with and those who could not or would not behave left.

Teaching was rigorous and high for the DC and me. Whilst DH has a brain the size of a planet, he found he had gaps when he got to Oxford, particularly in maths and English . He had to learn to punctuate.

However, I digress. There is a pattern above and it is significantly around expectations regarding behavour. Significant, even low level, disruption hinders the teacher and the pupils and neither shoukd have to suffer it.

Huge comps which are one size to fit all do not work. We need the return of smaller, specialist schools, including SEN specialist schools and more PRUs. No more than 20% need a University education to do the jobs available.

As an employer 20 somethings, even with a degree, are not work ready and have no idea how to behave at work and how to be collaborative and co-operative, let alone on time and attentive to detail.

All three of my state school children had tutors at some point. We are white British. It's affordable for us and helped with them pass exams (they are not high flyers). My niece and nephew were educated privately and also.has tutors at one point though. All of them attend universities of a similar standard so the advantage of paying for private is a bit of mystery.

Surely it’s good if parents want to invest their spare money in a tutor to help their children progress academically rather than spending it down the pub. Then we get a better calibre of school leaver more capable of entering work etc - good for society and for everyone.

We seem to have a weird mentality in the U.K. of wanting everything to be ‘fair’ even if that means pulling some people down so that everyone can be at the same level.

Some teachers are great and some are rubbish, some classes are well behaved, others are full of disruption - if i had a kid in a great class with a great teacher I probably wouldn’t look to tutor, but a kid with a rubbish teacher or in a class with a few disruptive kids should absolutely be tutored if that is what the parents can afford.

This latest study says it didn't look at private school tutoring.

However the Sutton Trust study from a few years ago reported this:

Tutoring is higher at grammar schools (23%) than independent schools (19%) or comprehensive schools (18%).

and

30% of young people aged 11-16 report ever having had private tutoring,

Link to study: www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Tutoring-The-New-Landscape.pdf

So higher in independents. Grammar makes sense as so many probably had tutoring to get in & need support.

Seems like a great idea to me

infact , it’s what we did/ do

we could never afford private school (and actually, I’m not sure it’s always a great use of money) but could afford the £100 a month (an hour a week) maths tutor.

my oldest has tutoring for 18 months, and I think it’s probably the only reason she passed her maths gcse .

son has been having his tutor for over a year , and will continue (unless something drastic happens) until he’s got his gcse . He is a slightly different case , as he has memory retention issues and struggles academically - but we are confident that he could get that magic level 4 with the continued support.

do I wish he didn’t need the support and I could spend that extra money on wine every month? Of course- but I’m very happy to continue to support him

My primary school age kids have a tutor. He works full time as a primary school teach and then from 4pm - 6/7pm every day earns £40 per hour to tutor kids.
He works weekends and holidays tutoring.

We also discovered that my kids school teachers are tutoring locally after school too.

So while I am chuffed that these teachers are able to make an extra £2k tax free cash in hand a month... I worry that they are not providing proper educations within the school due to all the tutoring work they do.

Bit of a no win situation for the parents.

That extra £2k should not be tax free. They should be declaring it in a self-assessment form and paying tax on it!

My DCs go to a “good” comprehensive school. They are doing ok, are in set 1 for streamed subjects. But they often have cover teachers and classes are big.
We haven’t started yet but we will get tutors for both of them when the time is right. We’re lucky that we are in the financial position to do this.

Private tuition is seen as a magic pill by those who don't make the effort.

Bollocks.

DD had a poor maths teacher in year 11. She was in the top set for maths, but her teacher rushed through the topics and DD couldn't grasp them before he went on to the next one. He was teaching at the speed of the top 10% of the top set.

Her grades dropped down to a B, so she had a tutor for a few weeks just so that every new concept could be explained to her fully. She flew after that and after sitting several practice papers took maths iGCSE (which was considered more rigorous than the GCSE at the time - 2016) in the January. She passed with a high A*.

Agreed.

One of my former state school colleagues did very well for himself, tutoring pupils from a well-known Edinburgh school for gals. They were in the process of failing Higher English.

What's absolutely batshit about all of this 'state schools are just as good as a private school if you pay £30 a week for a maths tutor' is that during covid it became evident to the whole country that there was a huge disparity in provision between state and private schools. It was made very visible.

Some people seem to think that the same doesn't apply to provision when schools are open.

I don't know why people keep posting this bollocks. Are they private school parents trying to kid themselves that they haven't bought a massive advantage for their kids, or are they state schools parents trying to kid themselves that there isn't any difference?

And this then leads to the whinging about state schools kids being 'advantaged' by contextual offers. Because of course, if state schools really were just as good as private schools, they shouldn't need them.

Completely agree. My DC went to Oxford and Cambridge. Their counterparts who stayed in the state system who were as bright or brighter did not.

My DC mix happily with everyone.

That's your experience and doesn't match mine. I've been teaching for 25 years in an affluent area and have seen too many parents pay for private tuition when we have flagged a lack of effort.

@RosesAndHellebores

I agree with you. Low level behaviour must be dealt with rigorously. That doesn't mean it's not there. You can't just tell a child to leave there is a process and if one child leaves you have to take another.

There is no doubt that there is a crisis in education with regards to low level behaviour.

I don't think anyone can dispute (even if they did well at school) that less people in their class would have made teaching easier, even in classes with impeccable behaviour.

Children who work hard and heed behaviour policies do get results. Absolutely. But the majority of those will be self motivated and in higher sets where behaviour will be better.

I'm coming at this from experience of working in comprehensive higher achieving schools in the south. My behaviour management in lessons is outstanding but that doesn't mean everyone in my classes will achieve high grades and it doesn't mean everyone always behaves, just because I don't allow it to disrupt my lesson I can't force them to work! They have to be able to and want to.

It's cash in hand.. no contracts... they are not paying tax on that! Which is a bit ironic seeing as tax is how there a paid in their day jobs!

I was a tutor to a primary aged private school boy
mum told me that most parents had a tutor
I was shocked at the prevalence

My children go to a private school, but in Aus where they are a lot cheaper than in the UK. A lot of children there are being tutored, although I think the teaching is great.

My impression is that there are 3 groups of children being tutored. The first are those where it’s culturally normal, and those children have extra tutoring all the way through school. The second are those who are struggling a bit at primary but don’t continue with it at secondary, often because the child disengages. The third are those who need to pass a particular subject in high school and need some help getting over the line.

ETA: and in the 3rd group, I don’t think it’s because the teachers are lacking. More that, for whatever reason, that child finds that subject hard.

It’s different than in the UK, though. In Aus students aiming for uni entry will take 5-6 subjects, which I suppose increases the likelihood of one subject getting neglected by the student.

I think this varies massively by area. If you have access to excellent, well funded state provision and live in an area where it's easy to find tutors and a wide range of extra curricular activities that you're prepared to pay for, then there probably isn't a massive difference, especially if you also do the "cultural capital" stuff at weekends and holidays and have sufficient connections to set up work experience etc. But in other areas, even the best state schools will be way behind the private offering.

The article is behind a paywall- does it break down the figure for comp vs grammar ? I would expect the percentage of grammar and private school students with a tutor to be very similar.

Well they should be, cash in hand or not. All the ppl I know with a side hustle amounting to more than £1k a year (and you are taking about £20k+) declare it and pay tax.

Great posts from @noblegiraffe and @2025mustbebetter - I was also puzzled by the idea that set 3 and below dc are ok with disruption? Also if you teach an option subject then setting is less likely tbh.

i hear you on the DT issue @2025mustbebetter - recall a DT colleague when a member of SLT walked in and clocked some familiar faces, asks colleague “is this a nurture group?” Nope, just my GCSE group - Yy they all think it will be easy and ofc it’s not.

Of course these swathes of primary school teachers who are tutoring three hours a night and neglecting their actual teaching job are doing it cash in hand and swindling the tax system as well. Of course they are.