to think people who pay for private tuition are just cheating?

[mdowdall]

There should be a stealth tax on all private tuition so that all private tutors have to be registered and charge, say, £500 an hour (enough to derter most families) - most of it going back to the treasury. I mean, why should the kids of pushy middle class parents do better in their grades than they ordinarily would have done just because they can afford to pay for extra tuition? People should just accept, if their kids are a bit thick in certain subjects, well, tough.
(btw - kids with autism, other probs etc - Im not including them - they should get all the free extra private tuition they need)

Grammar schools aren't/werent the problem it was/is the standard of schooling available to the 80% that don't/didn't pass.
I live in a grammar school area with one child that has passed, 3 to go.
God knows what we'll do though if any of the others don't pass because the alternative is pretty grim.

There is a nuclear arms race going on with tutoring, and it's survival of the richest when it comes to grammar school entrance.

My dc's go to a primary school in a very disadvantaged area. I have no doubt that there are children at this school with huge potential. There are bright, lovely children in my dc's classes who are eager to learn.

Unfortunately when it comes to grammar school entry they will be competing with children from private schools who ALSO have loads of potential, are ALSO bright and eager to learn AND, alas, have the advantage of 7 years of being taught in classes of 16, additional tutoring, music lessons, holidays abroad, and 11+ booster classes run by their schools.

What hope do kids from ordinary backgrounds have who have none of these things?

Yes - there are exceptionally bright children who get in with no tutoring - but these children are a very, very tiny minority.

I would like grammar schools to be required to draw their intake from state and private schools proportionately, and from schools in areas of deprivation, as I have no doubt that there are also children in these schools who have huge potential.

But then you'd have parents rent a flat in bogsvile for the year before entry, whatever you do to level the playing field it will be manipulated by those who can, simple as.

Unis have dumbed down to take disadvantaged children in poor post codes with lesser grades than ..... fill in the gaps.

Why? I'll say it again, libraries are free, books are free, motivation is inbuilt.

You cant keep giving 'it' on a plate to someone who lives in a dodgy post code at the expense of someone who genuinely deserves a placethrough work ethic

Motivation is definitely, definitely NOT inbuilt. You can help to nurture intrinsic motivation, but sadly, most of what motivates people to do anything is extrinsic i.e you might do something because you have seen somebody else do it, because society values it, because you want a good job, because it will make people respect you etc. If you're from a deprived background, these factors are missing because you're not exposed to them e.g. last year the top UK universities came round my school to try and attract our students. Following what I thought was a brilliant presentation by Cambridge I asked a group of sixth form kids whether they would like to go there and they shrugged because they'd never heard of the university and didn't know where it was.

The ideal, is that education should help to build intrinsic motivation i.e. people do something purely because they want to.

Trois garcons, this year four of our students have been offered places at top universities with radically lowered offers (one student has no GCSEs but has been accepted on a medicine course), because their achievement in staying on at sixth form is considerably greater than somebody from a supportive, well-educated middle class background. Three of the students are asylum-seekers and one has been through the care system. I think it is a tribute to those universities that they have accepted those kids and they will do much better than most students as they have already proved their determination in adversity.

"they just do not have the same opportunities that middle and upper class kids have and that's a fact. Bleating on otherwise is frankly sickening"

sorry but you are just bleating about something that has nothing at all to do with the failure of tens of thousands of children

if you're that angry, think about the real cause

you tutoring my (hypothetical) child has nothing to do with the failure of my (hypothetical) child

if my hypothetical child fails, it is her own failure or the failure of her education

"denied the opportunities" - yes, by a drippy, one size fits all, "anti elitist" curriculum which leaves the burden of teaching the basics to the parents

to bleat otherwise is sickening, because it means nothing will change - just blame middle class parents again, as if they can do anything about it

p.s. yeah, as other people have said, the OP is incorrect. Tutoring is fine, though I'm not sure it's any more successful than a parent taking an interest in their child and spending an extra hour with them talking through/ helping them with their work.

Actually, the majority of kids who are tutored (that I see, anyway), tend not to be tutored very well. If you are paying to get your child extra lessons, make sure they are in the course that your child is actually doing! So, so many children (I teach English) are just given random help. My subject is so large, that I prefer it when parents consult me so that I can say which curriculum we are following and what it would be useful for them to look at. I love it when this happens, as I can't give individual attention to all 30 kids, so appreciate the back-up.

you tutoring my (hypothetical) child has nothing to do with the failure of my (hypothetical) child

Well that makes a lot of sense,not.

I mean "you tutoring your (hypothetical) child has nothing to do with the failure of my (hypothetical) child"

I had tutoring for my 11+ even though my mum really couldn't afford it. She had to walk me there which was about 1.5 miles away and then wait the 2 hours as there was no point walking home and then walk me home again. This was mostly in the winter as well. However, she was prepared to do this to give me the chance of a grammar school education which I did end up getting and I am eternally grateful to her.

Yes and whatever your circumstances are you should immediately reduce your standard of living to the lowest standard in the country! Otherwise those with less income than yourself will feel jealous and write stupid posts on mumsnet.

should we put cameras in their homes to check their parents are not tutoring either?
What a lot of nonsense you talk.

What a load of bollocks. I'm of a working class backround(don't consider myself pushy middle class parent, not that it matters anyway) but in my case got fed up of doing my best to mop up at home what the shite school should have been doing during the day so have gone private as of september to do the best for my dd - I can't see what's wrong with that what am I supposed to do, sit around whilst her education goes down the pan? Sounds like sour grapes...

My DS wishes to go to the top grammar school in our area. Its intake will be the applicants with the highest test scores.

AS the intake is only 105, with hundreds or thousands of applicant, the required score will be near to 100%.

He will be competing with others that have been privately educated.

He is extremely intelligent and not a bit thick in any subject.

He is only tutored for one hour per week, which costs £26.

I work as a cleaner so I guess I am not MC.

I think the needs of the most gifted DCs are overlooked.

It is actually quite easy to tutor a struggling DC yourself, if you have a reasonable standard of education. How do you help a DC that can work at a higher level than his teacher?

You have made a lot of assumptions about people that use tutors.

The idea that others cannot buy things that you cannot afford is quite strange, are you a communist?

Class has got nothing to do with success in education- it's all about motivation. Parents who provide tutoring for their children are showing that they value education and see it as a route to success and thus their children will be motivated accordingly. You can motivate children to succeed in other (cheaper) ways too.

Private education is not, in itself, automatically better. But you are paying to adjust your child's motivational norm i.e. they see only children whose parents have paid for them to be educated and therefore all of those children consider education to be worth paying for, value it and aim to achieve accordingly. Because this is now your child's peer group they are likely to do better academically.

Tutors also adjust a child's motivation. And it's lovely to see so many people on here valuing their children's education. I suspect most of your children will be achieving their potential as a result.

I had a poor education I pay a tutor for my child, I want more for my son he is in the top set for al subjects and has a reading age of 16 I have managed to get myself in a position to get him in to the best school in the area class sizes or no more than twenty

But I guess some would think I should not have ideas above my station and I should of spent my money on white lightning instead of a tutor and stayed on the council estate so my son could go to the sink school lest I get accused of cheating.

My god their are so many parents who don't want the best for their kids but hay why not attack those who do

For parents who want to get their children into grammars sending them to private preps is not neccesarily going to be advantageous.

A traditional prep school goes to 13. Those schools accept rather than encourage a large cohort of leavers at age 11. They are unlikely to coach to the 11+ because they want the children (particularly the higher achieving grammar types) to stay.

Many primary schools prepare for the 11+ months in advance.

I think a child may well have a better cance from a state school that encourages the 11+ than they would in a private, depending on the intake and values of the different schools.