Yes, I know I am... People who tutor their DCs within an inch of their lives and then boast about their achievements

[lilolilmanchester]

Sorry, it does my head in

I don't think there's any moral high ground in allowing your child no practice for an exam not based on the state school curriculum that will majorly affect the next seven years of their education.

Nor do I think there is any one-upmanship worth having between paying for a tutor and diy. Horses for courses.

I do think it's a shame that we have reached the critical mass point where untutored children are at a disadvantage but I'm not going to stick my head in the sand and let my kids go into an exam without practice just to make that point.

I also said that she thinks that she is top set in maths because she is naturally very clever . I know there are cleverer children in her year group at maths. Whether that is natural, tutoring or both - I don 't know.

There's a massive difference between paying £30 four times a month to paying £3K a term.

You had an alternative choice to grammar and that's that. Had the alternative been unsuitable for your DD you would have forgotten about your 'morals'.

Three hours of tutoring a week is £90 a week or around £400 a month.

Still less than school fees but the amount is not an amount that we could not handle with ease - and I might get a lake or fancy uniform.

I am happy with the school my daughter is at , I don't know what I would have done if we had lived elsewhere and you definitely don't.

No I don't which is why I'm also not being judgmental of other people's choices whilst you are.

Ds1 tutored one hour a week plus half hour homework for nine months. He is at a ss grammar.
Ds same tutoring except for 1year. He missed the pass mark and is at local comp.
Dd is yr 4. She has got hold of her brothers vr books, rubbed out the answers and done them herself scoring over 90% each time. She is middle sets in school.
She completed a 11+/12+ test yesterday and scored 70%. She had never seen the algebra before.
Dd does these for fun. She will start with the same tutor soon.
Ds1 finds school easy, ds2 has asked me to help him and is now doing 30mins extra a day until he is happy with his learning.
I could not make my dcs do these. They choose too.
They also have many extra curricular activities.

I am not judging the people making the decision I am judging the system that allows it to happen . I fully understand why some people choose to tutor for the grammar , I have even said that I am very involved in my own children's education to an extent where it could be compared to tutoring.

My children are not in some kind of educational paradise . The exam results are just above average , the school is rated good ( I think the most popular OFSTED rating). So it would need to be quite a dire school for me to even consider a choice different to the one I have made. I am not sure if DD 2 is grammar material - she would be for maths but as I said before she is distinctly average at literacy. My elder daughter is grammar material but it was not a choice we wanted to make .

If I were to pay to achieve a certain type of education I have sufficient funds to pay for an independent education which would probably place less stress on my children and I would have better facilities and access to extra curricular activities on site rather than ferrying them about. As I said it would also mean that the grammar school place could go to someone who actually would benefit from social mobility - which I thought was the point of grammar schools.

Three hours of tutoring a week is £90 a week or around £400 a month

You are deluded if you think that your child's classmates are having three hours of tutoring a week.

That is what I have been told by parents of my daughter's friends. They may be exagerating - although not sure why.

From dd's circle, in the run up to SATS there were a few who were having an hour for each core subject a week. They were also doing up to two hours of booster classes a week.

There are some children who have a tutor after school and then attend a kumon type class at the weekend - are they not a few hours - although cheaper - as well as booster classes in school.

There is a local tutor who runs sessions on a Saturday and Sunday morning or after school in two hour blocks , she is always booked out - so two hours is certainly not unusual if not the norm.

I teach key stage three students who are being tutored to a similar level.

For the truly bright, they will get where they want pretty much regardless. A lot of the people I was at Cambridge with came from very average comprehensives and zero extra tuition. For the reasonably bright, all this pushing may mean they go to a slightly 'better' university but maybe do worse at their final degree. Anyone who has read anything about learning will have come across theories of 'deep' learning and 'intrinsic' motivation. This is where a pupil is motivated by real interest in the material and results in optimal outcomes.

When I read posts such as some of the above, it really depresses me. It is becoming like Japan where straight jacketed teens, pushed by school and especially parents, view a levels as their final target, lose interest subsequently, and have no idea how to be self motivated or work independently. What use is that to society?

When I read

I'm a bit behind on the responses - but a lot of people are citing DC who are withdrawn/troubled.

My DD is often tearful and a selective mute with social anxiety. This started in Y3 at the cuddliest primary in the world, who bent over backwards to support her. The trajectory I see for her is an ASD diagnosis before her teens. I'm sure the social anxiety will persist into adulthood. Now she is in Y5 we have focused on getting her placed at grammar school - because that is where the quirky academic kids tend to go round here. The best thing I can do for her anxiety is to place her at a school where she'll feel 'normal', and won't be out of place with her nerdy nature. It's the polar opposite to the accusation that I'm disregarding her mental health by coaching.

P,s. & we have also now enrolled at a private prep - after DD went on strike at her previous school on the grounds of 'I'm a year ahead of everyone else in the class - I deserve a year off' .

The prep say she is grammar school material - but somewhat mercurial and unpredictable - and held back with her unwillingness to show working, or fit the mould.

Hence why I, as her mum, sit with her a few hours each week - and unpick the bluster - to actually identify which part of the syllabus she does know - and which parts she's skating through on luck and instinct.

I think sometimes there is a bit of tutoring frenzy close to entrance exam times. But it's short lived and soon blows over ...meh...

Even then, I don't know anyone getting more than a couple of sessions a week.

That's one of the reasons I always chuckle to myself when anti-private school posters advise that you can just top up any gaps with a bit of tutoring. Good luck with getting your 15 year old to a tutor's five times a week .

Philoslothy - The parents of your daughter's friends sound very odd and over competitive (if you are correct) and I don't think you can extrapolate to the rest of the country. I live in a super selective grammar school area and I don't know anyone who's child does more than one tutor lesson a week (plus a bit of homework) for the 11+, let alone SATs.

I used to babysit for some children with v.well off parents (still only paid me £3 an hour though tight gits) and their kids were the most miserable, intelligent, morose, high-achieving children I'd ever come across.
They were really lovely kids, but all they talked about was their friends nannies and their nannies and when his mum (completely unnecessarily) showed me the eldest's (he was 12) most recent sailing award he was mortified and completely unexcited about it . Later it turned out he actually liked playing hockey and rugby but his parents wanted him to do the sailing.

It was that day I vowed to 'push' but not be 'pushy' and 'encourage' but not 'steer'.

I also recently came across a newspaper article from 1852 during some research that was about a woman abusing her nearly 5 year old child, hitting her, tubs of cold water outside at night etc. When they asked the little girl why she thought her mum had done this, she replied it was because she could not remember all her geography, specifically naming all the Irish counties in alphabetical order. Turns out the mother had taught her arithmetic, French, Latin and Gaelic as well! The judge told her "No doubt you want your child to be an astonishing child." < that about sums it all up for me. What you want - not what's good for them.

It will be interesting to see how these excessively tutored children end up.

Do they fall apart at Uni?

Do they get better jobs?

Do they sacrifice other skills because they are tutored?

Will they blame their parents or thank them later in life?

I know of a family whose children are being hot housed.

They are extremely wealthy and they all go private/public and or will do, so not a point about grammar entrance, the mum is Chinese and they have 6 children.

They get about 12 different vitamin tablets and supplements with every breakfast and they get all sorts of tutoring in sports, languages and the rest, they have long days! They have very little free time ever. The whole household is very scheduled for all of them.

That ^ is what I call hot housing. Not a few hours or even one hour of tutoring to get into grammer/grammar school in the period leading up to the exams.

guisha I wish I had been tutored and helped to reach my potential.

Once you have the skills and qualifications you can do what you want, go and become a hermit in the woods, but its very hard to attain qualifications as an adult and make up for lost time.

The real tragedy is the DC who under achieve, who have parents who don't care about or value education.

A few middle class kids getting Kumon or VR tutoring isn't in the same ballpark.

Yoni, I was not tutored, my parents didn't even take notice of what I was doing in school yet I have been successful in life.

Qualifications don't always equal success.

Does tutoring happen everywhere then? Am I going to come up against this even here, in the north and in an area with no grammar schools?

I really don't think I am a better parent than others on this thread and apologise if it comes across that way. I have to say LaQueen that you seem to have an issue with me rather than the othe way around . I am not sure why you think that you can give me a ticking off on my posting style as if you are the grand Dame of MN and then warn me that your minions are about to turn up to issue punishment .

I am a good enough parent, no better and sometimes worse. Just as I am just about good enough at everything else. I never will be anything exceptional because I am too lazy .

I also don't think my children are natural geniuses , I have again and again said DD2 is just above average in science - although actually for her year group she is bang on average and an average achiever in English. She is good at maths , but at a level 6 at age 12 she is certainly not a prodigy !

DSS is very clever but I don 't think I can take credit for that - not biologically anyway. I have cooked him a few meals and overseen the odd essay but that is it!

Ds1 is very clever in some ways but he also comes with a lot of issues associated with his aspergers. This morning he got frustrated and pushed me down the stairs ( I am pregnant ) so I am sat at home hoping nothing has happened to the baby and wondering what on earth I will do with my son when he gets home.

I am hardly the vision of perfection that most others posters on MN are. I have strong views on the grammar system because I see it's affects . I have no personal axe to grind with anyone, not least because that would require effort on my part.

I own a few fields and animals , lots of people do round here. Again it hardly makes me a super parent. The fact that my children would rather wonder around in fields than do extra homework makes them quite normal.

I await hordes of MNers telling me off for not meeting MN etiquette.

Procrastreation I am sorry to hear about your difficulties with your son, we have very similar issues with our eldest. We eventually had to withdraw him from mainstream , although I hope that he will cope at university and perhaps meet more people like him .

He cried before, during and after school for years, it was just heartbreaking.

He obsessively does maths and science but often point blank refuses to do anything else. This morning he got angry with me because I told him that he had to put his books away and get the bus for school.

Well - I think she'll be just fine when she grows up and can build a life around herself based on her own strengths and comfort zone. But secondary school will be hard for her - she just finds social situations very stressful sometimes. Her best chance is to go somewhere with an emphasis on academic achievement (which she's strong in), and a community of quirky off-beat kids that she can geek with and compete with.

It'd bug me if people thought that she was socially withdrawn because she'd prepared for grammar school exams. She's preparing for grammar school exams, because she's probably an aspie, and the grammar school environment would be less socially challenging for her.