Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
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:
LaQueen · 30/04/2013 12:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

exoticfruits · 30/04/2013 12:39

I wouldn't mind super selective if it was just 2% .

stopthecavalry · 30/04/2013 12:44

Should you tutor for GS ? depends on the type of tutoring. You shouldn?t try make a silk purse out of a sow?s ear so if your kid is going to need years of tutoring to get to the right standard then I would say they are likely to struggle when they get there ? even if they do manage to ?nick? a place from a more deserving candidate. If they just need to be shown work they haven?t done at state school and exam technique and they pick things up pretty quickly then they will probably be fine.
In addition surely most parents will ?tutor? even if it is just getting the bond books from WH Smith. Surely those who say they didn?t tutor at least did this. I don't believe they just patted their child on the head the morning of the exam and that was the sum total of their preparation.

Do we need GSs? Not so sure but stuck with them now. And they do distort the local school intakes ? especially in inner city areas. The polarisation between the GS and many of the comprehensive schools where I live is immense. The GS and private schools cream off the ?best? and the remainders without options go to the local comp. Many families opt out of this whole charade altogether and just move out of the area towards the end of primary.

happybubblebrain · 30/04/2013 12:44

I'm so glad we don't live in a grammar school area. I'd have to grow some claws. I think in this desperate fight for the top people are forgetting the most important things for their kids.

wordfactory · 30/04/2013 12:45

I thik maybe top 5% in superselectives and open them country wide.

That way those pupils will get an apporpriate education, and on a selfish level, we can educate up those folk who are likely to fix global warming/find a cure for epilepsy/negotiate a peace deal in the middle east...

JugglingFromHereToThere · 30/04/2013 12:47

Why 2% though, why not say 10% - ideologically and even practically I'm not sure I see the difference.

(And my DC's would be more likely to get in if it was 10%. Though thankfully they are settled now anyway)

seeker · 30/04/2013 12:48

Laqueen-sorry, I added "knuckle draggers". The rest are your own words.

I do hope you aren't disappointed by the grammar school. You do seem to have a very rosy view.

lainiekazan · 30/04/2013 12:49

I did think the 2% or up to 5% idea was good, but then these schools might be populated by the dcs of complete nutters. It would be 11+ madness ratcheted up X 1000.

At a recent music theory exam I witnessed parents stuffing Kendal's Mint Cake into their dcs, and one father looming over his whey-faced ds snarling that he needed a distinction to get a scholarship.

Perhaps schools could conduct random CAT-style tests throughout a child's primary years (by age, not by year) and select the top pupils that way.

OhHullitsOnlyMeYoni · 30/04/2013 12:53

Or rather than the 11+ teachers from the primary have termly assessments on each child throughout their primary life? They are more likely to spot bright kids and then there would be no need for an exam and no possibility of mad cramming tutoring for a single exam.

OhHullitsOnlyMeYoni · 30/04/2013 12:53

Should have been a comma after 11+

lainiekazan · 30/04/2013 12:53

The tutoring thing does not enable sub-standard entrants to sneak through. What it does is lift your dc's mark from 94 to 95% (or even higher) which is the bar to getting in in some schools. So the 94% pupil is hardly a thicko who won't cut it at GS.

Otoh, if comprehensive (in gs areas) schools are populated with all these 94%-ers, then their top sets should be pretty good.

CecilyP · 30/04/2013 12:54

I do hope you aren't disappointed by the grammar school. You do seem to have a very rosy view.

That's what I feel. Having gone to a grammar school myself, I don't recognise the 'whole gleaming matching set of luggage of excellence', but perhaps things have changed so much since my day.

gazzalw · 30/04/2013 12:54

I don't think random CAT-style tests would solve the extra-curricular tutoring factor though, do you? It would just make it even more manic

And in the super-selective areas it really is handbags at dawn - quite grim really and not for the faint-hearted Hmm.

wordfactory · 30/04/2013 12:57

Our nearest grammar school is pretty meh, I must say.

But I think if my choice had been that or a local comp, I'd have still gone for GS.

OhHullitsOnlyMeYoni · 30/04/2013 12:58

Sorry just realised the flaw in my 'let's all trust primary teachers' plan.
Obvs schools want ALL of their pupils to go to the best school to boost their intake numbers and make them look amazing. OK.
So, how about going on SATs? Assuming that those arguing the exam at 10 is psychologically damaging kids for life, don't they have to do these before 10 now anyway? Why don't Grammar/Selective schools use these instead?

gazzalw · 30/04/2013 13:04

Because a lot of schools 'cheat' by offering loads of extra tuition to ramp up SATS results - so again it wouldn't necessarily be a fair or level playing field.

OhHullitsOnlyMeYoni · 30/04/2013 13:06

Erm. Isn't that the same as home tutoring?
As I said before, if the child gets a good result, that knowledge doesn't just go away...? If some schools can ramp up the tuition for exams, then why can't the rest? I know that sounds silly but some primaries here (comp ones) clearly get better results than others and yet I assume they have the same funding?
Am I missing something?

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 30/04/2013 13:14

I didn't realise we were just discussing superselectives!

JugglingFromHereToThere · 30/04/2013 13:15

Yeh, I'm kind of with you there Hull, since when was teaching children in schools "cheating" (or out of it come to that) I thought that's what schools were meant to do ?!
Though, on the other hand, I think schools can get a bit pressurised before SATS. I'd like to see them still doing some projects and other wider learning in Y6 too.

gazzalw · 30/04/2013 13:16

I think some Heads aren't in favour of artificially inflating results (know that neither the previous one nor current one of DCs' primary school would do this) this way?

DS's class, despite having no extra before/after school extra revision sessions, managed to come second in the Borough for numbers getting KS2 Level 5s (and above) but I think that said more about the particular cohort than luck or extra classes. Mind you a lot did sit selective exams so maybe if they did extra work for those, it will have helped 'beef' up their KS2 SATS results...

My brain hurts - we seem to end up going round in circles Wink - well I am anyway!

OhHullitsOnlyMeYoni · 30/04/2013 13:21

I suppose you can't have it all ways. It seems to be a case of you do crafty projects at home or you get home tutored because you do them at school and vice versa? Maybe that is where the parent choice comes in at primary level - you see a school is academic, and if you want a balance for your child you focus on the rest (non-academic) at home. Some parents won't care enough about non academics to bother and some will. Likewise if the school is brimming with sports high achievers and art knocking you on the head from the ceiling in every room, but not very high with the academic marks you probably feel you have to do the extra work at home = home tutoring. Perhaps it depends on the parent's abilities and expectations of themselves which schools they choose to start with.
Sorry off on a bit of a tangent.
Shite - must get some housework done!

Dereksmalls · 30/04/2013 13:50

My comprehensive must have been highly unusual, lots of people at RG universities and I don't remember anyone i knew dissing homework etc. Sure, those kids existed but weren't in my class or my friends. I remember the kids who got the hardest time being the ones who were thought of as being a bit dim, not the other way round.

pickledsiblings · 30/04/2013 13:59

"I'm sure that academically bright children do very well in most comprehensives...but do they do as well, as they'd have done in a grammar school environment...? We don't know? Personally, I doubt it."

Does school experience ie whether or not a student enjoys school matter?

Has anybody come across any data on students experience/enjoyment of school in different settings (Comp/Sec Mod/Grammar/Private/Single sex?mixed Sex/Faith) ?

seeker · 30/04/2013 14:03

""I'm sure that academically bright children do very well in most comprehensives...but do they do as well, as they'd have done in a grammar school environment...? We don't know? Personally, I doubt it."

Well, the same number of As and A*s emerge from selective LEAs as emerge from non selective ones. So somebody's getting them. I presume they are largely the same people. Interestingly, there are generally more BS in non selective was, so the high ability kids do about the same, and the middle ability kids do better.

wordfactory · 30/04/2013 14:04

I suspect its very personal t each child pickled

I was very unhappy in a comprehensive. Yet my DD was adamant that she would be very unhappy in a superselective.

I was lucky to have the choice for her because we can afford to pay, but it seems to me that such a choice should also be avaialble to those that can't.

Same for DS. He is utterly thriving in a superselective. Agian, I've accessed this because I can pay...