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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

"tutoring for grammar school is cheating". AIBU to be fuming at DSIL's attitude?

670 replies

twiceupinarms · 26/04/2013 19:29

namechange coz as much as I don't care if she reads this, I don't want her to know my normal nickname.Angry
I am getting my DD tutored for grammar school. DSIL thinks it's cheating if she can't get in without being tutored and will therefor struggle when she gets there. for fucksake, the exams are not based on school curriculum - it's like being a brilliant footballer but been trialled to get in the team on your ability to tie your laces. fucksake.
Anyone else encountered this attitude?
Oh I can add hypocrisy to the list? Her DD audtitioned to go to Stage Boarding School. Did she do any practice/preparations for the audition? Only 9 lessons a week, every week, for 6 years.
Angry
AIBU to be cross?

OP posts:
MTSgroupie · 29/04/2013 12:31

You post a generalisation about immigrants and then you tell me that I am either being simplistic or racist? Grin

Granted some immigrants are doctors and PhDs who fled their countries and arrive penniless but the majority tend to be uneducated poor factory workers who are admitted to the UK because of family links. The educated ones are all headed for North America or Australia.

ReallyTired · 29/04/2013 13:07

I know plenty of lower middle class immigrants. They are neither super wealthy nor penniless. In my experience economic immigrants have a higher than average amount of ambition, courage, get up and go than most of us. It takes courage to leave family and move to the other side of the world for a better life.

"
Also, immigrants are almost by definition self motivated, involved and into forward planning.

I find the "immigrants can do it, why can't everyone" argument simplistic at best, racist at worst."

White people can choose to be ambitous and forward planning as well.

seeker · 29/04/2013 13:09

Fair enough, MT, you know best.

LaQueen · 29/04/2013 13:21

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

lainiekazan · 29/04/2013 13:22

But you need to practise for the 11+ unless you can guarantee that not one single child will have seen a paper like it before.

Dd likes doing Bond papers for fun (unfortunately we do not live in a grammar school area!). At first she did quite badly, having never encountered verbal/non-verbal reasoning. After a few papers she was zooming through.

Practising isn't cheating. It's familiarising the entrant with the style of exam. Who does O/A Level without looking at past papers?

Moominsarehippos · 29/04/2013 13:26

A lot will tutor and pull any strings possible to get their child into the school. It's not exactly in the same league as passing on a brown envelope of cash to the admissions officer is it?

melika · 29/04/2013 13:26

Haven't read all the posts. But I think some of you are living in cloud cuckoo land not to tutor your kids to get into Grammar school.

My DS was and is very bright and I know he would have passed the test but I had him tutored to ensure he got in. There are schools who tell you not to, no one listens and goes ahead anyway. I was not going to let my DS lose out to those mediocre students who have been 'sharpened up' by a tutor. As it turned out, he had a lazy teacher in his Yr 5 and Yr6 and the work made up for the lack of homework he wasn't getting.

I have no regrets, he is happy, thriving and in the right school.

Xenia · 29/04/2013 13:31

People should be free to pay for tutors or teach their children at home by buying test papers if they want to. I don't pay for tutors but then I pay school fees so I would expect them to learn in school where they seem to be doing 100% of their homework at present which is terribly easy. I do accompany music practice on the piano, but that's often because I like it so it's more a self indulgence for me rather than a keeping anyone to the grindstone.

Music: Okay, not everyone can afford a piano but singing is free as is music theory and some instruments you can buy on Ebay. (Our cars always cost about £800 - £1000....)

LaQueen · 29/04/2013 13:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ChristinaF · 29/04/2013 13:40

YANBU.
Perhaps you SIL doesn't live in a grammar school area?
Here in West Kent you would be crazy NOT to get your child tutored if you wanted them to go to grammar school. Both DD1 and DD2 are very able girls but we had them tutored because that's what everyone else was doing and it would have put them at a disadvantage if they had not been tutored. Of course you are not cheating.

wordfactory · 29/04/2013 13:41

I think thwe idea of tutoring as cheating is at best naive, at worst disingenuous.

We all do things for our DC that give them an advanatge over other DC. It's what we do as parents.

The continuum of advanatge moves from reading your DC a bedtime story, to getting a freind to give them a job. We all draw the line of how far we will go.

Tutoring is simply somewhere on the advanatage continuum.

MTSgroupie · 29/04/2013 13:41

The 11+ is in the rear view mirror as far as my kids are concerned. But now that I look back I should probably be grateful that my DCs were competing against kids.whose parents didn't believe in tutoring. So to all those parents Wine

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 29/04/2013 13:42

I assume grammar school areas are different from one another, anyway - and that in some cases tuition is the norm, and some less so? Maybe it's not usual where OP and SIL live. But anyway, it's obviously not cheating, because there's no rule against it. Whether it's right is another question I suppose.

whatever5 · 29/04/2013 14:11

I wouldn't be annoyed with your SIL as she obviously doesn't know what she is talking about. These days, if you want your child to go to a "superselective" grammar school you have to use a tutor (or teach your child yourself) just to level the playing field.

My daughter did practice papers at home for a few months and then we switched to a tutor for six months before the exam (dd wanted to learn with other children).

Tutors don't do anything that a reasonably intelligent parent couldn't do themselves and to suggest that it's cheating or that the child will subsequently struggle if they get into the grammar school is quite naive.

seeker · 29/04/2013 15:25

"So, the playing field is still pretty level."

Yep. That's why grammar schools tend to have around 2% of children on free school meals.........

MTSgroupie · 29/04/2013 15:39

The playing field is level seeker. The problem is that a lot of poor people subscribe to your viewpoint ie you have to be educated and MC in order to know how to Google "free 11+ papers".

seeker · 29/04/2013 15:58

Fair enough, MT. You know best.

CloudsAndTrees · 29/04/2013 16:12

It would be interesting to see how many children on free school meals actually enter the exam, or even apply for a grammar school prospectus. It costs nothing to enter the exam, it costs nothing to tutor at home.

If parents of children who are on free school meals wanted to apply to grammar schools, then they could do so. If parents are capable of filling in a form to apply for FSMs, then they are capable of applying to grammar schools.

MTSgroupie · 29/04/2013 16:12

Is that what your therapist told you to say seeker?

I kind of miss the old seeker. I mean, I loved how you would argue a point even though it contradicted what you posted 3 screen pages earlier. I hope you find your way home soon Flowers

seeker · 29/04/2013 16:17

F.E.MT. Y.K.B.

seeker · 29/04/2013 16:40

"If parents of children who are on free school meals wanted to apply to grammar schools, then they could do so. If parents are capable of filling in a form to apply for FSMs, then they are capable of applying to grammar schools."

So, are you saying that poorer children are inherently less bright than better off ones? Or do you have another explanation for the very limited number of children on FSM at grammar schools?

CloudsAndTrees · 29/04/2013 16:49

So, are you saying that poorer children are inherently less bright than better off ones

How on earth do you come to the conclusion that you need to ask that question from what I posted? Confused

Wierd.

I think there is a possibility that some parents who have children that receive FSMs may choose not to apply because they think they or their children won't fit in. Some of them may not know how to apply, some of them might not want to send their dc to grammar school on principle, some of them may feel out of their depth when it comes to preparing their child for the exam at home. Some may feel they can't afford the extra transport cost of getting their child to the school if there is a closer one nearby.

There are probably plenty of other possibilities that I haven't thought of that have nothing to do with whether they can afford to pay a tutor or not.

Whatever it is, it is within their own control. It is not the fault of a grammar school when a parent can't or won't do what is needed to send their child there.

FrauMoose · 29/04/2013 16:55

I think the grammar school my daughter attends doesn't do a lot to encourage children from the more disadvantaged areas of the city to apply or feel as if they're going to be made to feel welcome when and if they arrive. They/the parents' association doesn't hold second hand uniform sales - and the uniform is fancier/more expensive than that of comparable secondary schools. There are a a great many trips for 'cultural enrichment' but no mention is ever made about the possibility of paying for these by instalments. The last time I went to an event the Head informed the parents assembles that their children were 'the leaders of tomorrow.' Now I don't necessarily want my child to be a leader, when I look at the people in the news who have been doing the leading. It seemed like a rather smug way of saying, 'We are the elite' and the others are 'the masses.'

JuliaScurr · 29/04/2013 16:55

Clouds I take it your in depth knowledge of Social Science was gained by dint of student fees etc. I would ask for your money back.

MTSgroupie · 29/04/2013 17:02

FrauMoose - what do you expect the school to say? Your children will be average in their adult life and your dreams will probably be unfulfilled?

You would make a crap motivational speaker :)