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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

In thinking Private Tutors may be considered 'unfair'

93 replies

pingu2209 · 25/05/2011 16:00

I am not wishing to be contentious, but the thread on private or state education certainly got people thinking.

But what about private tutors?

There was a (sad I know) Radio 2 programme an age ago about private tutors not being fair in a grammer school area. That children whose parents could afford private tutors have an unfair advantage over those that didn't. Apparently a high percentage of grammer school children were privately tutored before they took their 11+ exam.

Personally I use a private tutor for my DS1 but that is for his SEN, because the state system is so shockingly crap at meeting SEN needs.

OP posts:
wheresthepimms · 25/05/2011 17:56

Bennifer I hope you are not the admissions clerk when my children apply for university. They go to a private school because they board as we move house every 18 months to 2 years and their education was being affected by the varying standards of state education we were coming across. If they had stayed in a state school I would be using a private tutor or home educating them because although we have a national curriculum their is no specific in year order you have to teach and my DCs were missing large chunks through moving house. They may now be considered to be privileged as they go to a private school but it is not their fault it is my DHs job, so we could state educate and not see DH (we would stay in one place), get him to leave his job and live on welfare benefits as in the current climate he wouldn't get another or send them to board. I think it would be unfair of you to say because they went to a private school they should be disadvantaged when applying to uni, it really isn't the DCs fault

EricNorthmansMistress · 25/05/2011 18:42

We pay for private tutors for LAC kids in year 11. Is that unfair? They still don't tend to achieve 5 A-Cs if that helps...

donnie · 25/05/2011 18:45

OMG will people stop writing GRAMMER and write GRAMMAR ? are you all thick or summat?

flibbertigibbert · 25/05/2011 19:00

I do get annoyed by my boss - she uses 'public school' as an insult and likes to think she's very working class and sends her children to state schools and lives in quite a deprived bit of London, yet she also pays for a personal tutor. It does seem hypocritical to me, as she's giving her kids advantages over their peers. Not to mention the drama and piano lessons...

northerngirl41 · 25/05/2011 19:13

You could look at it from the point of view that parents who work long hours and earn more money have less time to spend one-on-one with their child and tutor them themselves. Parents do have skills to teach children, it's not just tutors/teachers who can teach a child.

I don't see anything wrong with it, apart from if the child can't cope without the tutoring and ends up in a class way over their head.

amicissima · 25/05/2011 19:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Wormshuffler · 25/05/2011 19:40

donnie yeah I am thick............If only My Parents had coached me to pass my 11+......it could all have been so different Wink

mollymole · 25/05/2011 19:42

life is not fair
some people are as thick as pig shit and are unable to help their offspring - does this mean that those who are more able should not have kids ??

Gooseberrybushes · 25/05/2011 21:21

Bonsoir -"Maybe we should ban learning all together in the interests of fairness?"

heh heh

Gooseberrybushes · 25/05/2011 21:22

and donnie thank God for you

everyone was being frightfully polite but yes no more grammer

as any fule kno

NellieForbush · 25/05/2011 21:55

My friend can't afford a tutor but has got one for her dc anyway - but the dc haven't got the bikes they wanted for their birthdays - does this make it any 'fairer'?

What a bizarre OP.

Agree with bonsoir abolish all learning and really level the playing field.

Vallhala · 25/05/2011 22:01

On a tangent, pingu, and other parents of SEN children (and that INCLUDES bullied DC, although bullying isn't considered an SEN, which is why I'm aware of this going on - see my thread in Chat about Red Balloon Schools for more info on that), there's a consultation leading to a Green Paper on SEN funding and parental choice being held right now.

If you'd like to have your say you can respond to the consultation by following the link to the RHS of this explanatory link.

PlanetEarth · 26/05/2011 09:06

BOM - it is certainly not impossible to coach verbal and mental reasoning. With both my DDs we did verbal reasoning practice papers, and they improved from around 60% on the first couple to around 90%. Their intelligence did not improve over the couple of months we practised! What did improve was speed - going from finishing say 70% of questions to finishing all with time to spare - and technique. There are tricks for, say, solving anagrams (e.g. write the letters in a circle), and there are a limited number of ways of doing, say, number sequence puzzles, so once you've seen a few and know how they work you do improve.

I guess you will reach a limit with any given child, but you can definitely improve their scores.

LeQueen · 26/05/2011 15:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

wordfactory · 26/05/2011 15:11

I agree too.
I think many people are in for a real shock as to just how competitive it is out there...and also in denial about how much one will have to earn just to make ends meet.

Totally different ball game to hwne most of us were starting out.

FabbyChic · 26/05/2011 15:17

My son at 13 had a private tutor an hour a week for five weeks so he could sit his first GCSE Maths exam which was purchased via distant learning.

LeQueen · 26/05/2011 15:18

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Gooseberrybushes · 26/05/2011 23:55

LeQueen is right on the nose.

Gooseberrybushes · 26/05/2011 23:55

and the poster she quoted about the global challenge I'm sorry I haven't read back to see who it was

PenguinArmy · 27/05/2011 01:29

I have tutored and I have always sought to get the tutee to change their way of thinking and work for themselves rather than drill them. I've also taught more state school children than private. Often it's a case of them not getting what the teacher taught them or clicking with their teachers style. I also used to charge underprice if people were less well off and normally had someone I would tutor for free

I wouldn't begrudge anyone that skill.

PenguinArmy · 27/05/2011 01:30

sorry what I mean I tried to get the tutee to learn how to teach themselves etc

tryingtoleave · 27/05/2011 04:20

I went to a selective school in a nice part of Sydney. In those days tutoring for the entrance exam was almost unheard of. Most of the girls at the school would have gone to private schools or good state schools if they hadn't got in. Now there is a huge coaching industry for girls who want to get in. THe girls come from much further away, from all over Sydney. The ethnic make up of the school has changed. Now these parents are choosing to invest in tutoring to give their children a chance to get a very good education. A lot of them probably don't have the option my peers had of private education or good local schools. The teachers say these students work much harder than we used to.

I don't think that is unfair at all. It seems more a matter of choices and values.

skybluepearl · 27/05/2011 04:43

i'd like to give my son the option to go grammar if he is good enough but am dreading having to cough up lots of money just so he can be tutored in how to simply sit the test. if he scrapes through with low grades we will look at comp schools instead as i'm sure it wouldn't do much for self esteem being in all the bottom sets.

ninedragons · 27/05/2011 06:02

How you choose to spend your money reflects what you value - this is a fundamental, self-evident truth but I can't believe the extent to which it's overlooked.

No idea what tutors cost (we are in the baby and pre-school years) but I dare say that in those families where it's a financially marginal thing, the child is likely to do well. That a family spends its money on a tutor rather than an annual holiday in Spain or Abercrombie & Fitch clothing indicates to me that the child is in an environment that actively supports education.

Same with school catchments. We choose to live in a flat in an area with excellent primary schools. We could sell it and buy a six-bedroom palace in an area with bad or even middling schools. We value education over spare bedrooms, gardens, and off-street parking.

The post about academic families is very true, too. I have postgraduate degrees in English and my mother is a nuclear physicist. If we do homework sessions with DD, are we tutoring or is she just doing her homework with Granny and Mummy?

I know our DC are lucky and have advantages, but it's not my role as a parent to hold them back in some misguided attempt to level the playing field.

mollycuddles · 27/05/2011 06:52

Dd1 is sitting an 11+ in November and we are paying for a tutor. She should do well but she is a real worrier and the tutor is brilliant at working on confidence. She had big gaps in her maths which a teacher should have spotted but she is a well behaved girl in school and has obviously stayed under her teacher's radar. I understand the philosophical argument about fairness but I am going to do what is best for her.

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