To pull my daughter out of tutoring?

[Chairmancow]

Another shitty weekend ruined by trying to get uncooperative Dd (9) to do her homework. She started tutoring for 11 plus 3 weeks ago and we've all had enough already!
She's not able or willing to independently get on with the piles of work she has to complete each week. Consequently we have to stand over her helping her and scolding her when she pisses about. Which Is frequently! We are so frustrated with it all. It's spoiling all our weekends. I've doubts about her ability to work quickly enough to pass it anyway.
Should we quit or keep on?
The comps round here are dire, obviously if they were any good I would never have started all this.
Dh doesn't deal with stress well (mental health problems) and I think we're both feeling under a lot of pressure to not to let her do badly at school.
Advice please!

Also £100 for two hours group sessions seems quite high. We pay £34 for an hour 1:1 London / Surrey borders.

Get a 1:1 tutor.

Your current tutor isn't really giving her more than she's getting in school, apart from homework - which is causing you all stress.

For a start, the amount of homework will go down with a 1:1 tutor.

"Take her on a tour of your local comps followed by a tour of your roughest local estate. I'm sure her work ethic will undergo a dramatic change."

Fuck me, that's an awful thing to say!

So the tutor is charging each of the 7 parents £100 each for 2h tutoring!!! So is making £350/h! No wonder he wants you to give it til Christmas.

I do actually think it would be worth you going to the open days for all the local secondary schools - they're held this time of year. You may find that, if she likes the grammers, it may motivate her to work (in wjich case find a 1:1 tutor for her). Or you may find that you actually quite like one of the high schools (they're not comprehensive schools).

I guess it might depend on the area - the 11+ exam is not the same nationally, if you haven't got GS locally you might not appreciate that. There are probably 4 or 5 GS relatively local to me, depending on how far you're prepared to travel and there are only 2 which have a shared exam. All the others have their own. Clued up parents know which are harder/easier and which schools put limits on out of catchment applications. There are also a couple of fee paying GS (exams known to be easier than the state ones).
My DD is only taking one entrance exam as our local comp is a good school and I'd be happy for her to go there if she doesn't get offered a GS place, looking at the standard of the questions in past papers there is no way she would have stood a chance getting the required grade without some additional teaching. Her tutors are part of quite a big set up, they teach in small groups but with specialised tutors, I.e she's taught maths by a maths teacher and so on. She's been doing 2 hours with them a week with a small amount of homework. The teaching is so good that those 2 hours fly by and she's even quite enjoyed maths (weakest subject) and has really enjoyed VR and English.
She hasn't loved giving that time up, but she hasn't hated it either. Visiting the school she now wants to go to was a good motivator.

That's called "a kid who doesn't want to go to grammar school, and would not cope with it one iota."

Stop now before you destroy your relationship with her for good.

I live in a city with some 'dire' schools (no one passes a single GCSE and have now been ordered to close), and perfectly adequate ones where the strong children do very well, the medium-ability children are pushed and also achieve well, and there's a large group of children who have no desire to do well but they sort of come out with something. You're never going to find some utopia school full of high-intelligence wealthy kids. Even your hoped-for grammar will probably be stuffed with over-tutored middle-of-the-road kids who are crippled by their parents' expectations.

"Man selling poor but hugely expensive product wants customer to keep buying" shock.

Haven't read whole thread but having just gone through 11+ in Kent I would suggest visiting all secondary schools grammar and non grammar in next few weeks. If she is attracted to grammar it might inspire her to work. It did my son. However if she is borderline and will not to work soooo hard to pass I wouldn't put her through it. We've found it a long difficult year. My son did one hour tutoring a week and no extra work at all in too of that and school work except for a handful of practice papers in the summer. A good tutor shouldn't need to give homework at this time in the year as well. If she's pushed too hard this early in it could be too much for her by the time the rest comes round x

Urgh apologies for all the typos. Hope you can make sense of it!

I'm also paying a very reasonable £34 for those 2 hours. Another well regarded tutor in my area charges £25 p/h for small group tutoring.
To give an example of why someone who might be very able at school would not necessarily pass an 11+, DD's tutors held a session and invited parents to attend where they went through a 'mock'paper the kids had done at Christmas, maths tutor went through the questions and for one type he explained this is not taught until Yr10 at high school. If you hadn't prepared for that, you wouldn't have seen that type of question before.
Personally, I think this is all rather unfair, but it is what it is.

Take her on a tour of your local comps followed by a tour of your roughest local estate. I'm sure her work ethic will undergo a dramatic change

Right, because anyone going to a Comprehensive must be something out of Breaking Bad. I must tell my trading systems analyst son that he needs to quit and start cooking.

Nice example of bigotry and inability to read the OP posts in one statement.

All else aside OP, I would have my doubts about your tutor. 50ukp per hour in a group of 7 for a tutor who is unable to foster engagement is a waste of money.

If you really feel she needs some help at this age then find someone else to work 1:1.

One last reflection!
I have 2 older kids who went through this a few years ago. Both went to one of the local GS. One was nearly ditched by the tutor for poor attitude and not doing enough work, but did well in the exam and finished high school with excellent grades. The other (Chinese takeaway) sailed through tutoring and easily got into GS, but found the drive and pressure to get good grades irritating and often clashed with teachers. Graduated with a first recently.
They are both obviously smart kids and arguably could have done well,anywhere, but at that time the local comp was a truly awful school.

I worry about your DH and his stress related mental health problems. He needs to be able to parent properly too. Children with a good home life will do well wherever they go and they will meet "the wrong crowd" wherever they go too!
My DD failed the 11 plus - she's now half way through a degree at a RG uni with aspirations to apply for the civil service fast stream to work in the diplomatic service. There were definitely "bad crowds" at her comp as there are no doubt at uni and in also life in general! My DH also copes very badly with stress and I understand the impact of this on the family as a whole (and especially me)!

If a kid needs to be tutored for months for grammar school, they shouldn't be in grammar school.

I'm an 11+ tutor and shocked you are paying that much. £100 a week is ridiculous.

If she is struggling now please either get a more low-key (and cheaper!) tutor or consider options other than grammar school.

god, this brings back the memories of last year - and the years before. We did fairly intense tutoring for DD for nearly 2 yrs because our nearest grammars took about 20% of local kids but you needed to be top 2% to get an out-of-catchment place.

Weekend after weekend of stress and homework - and that was with a DD who was willing, just working at the upper end of her ability.

Passed brilliantly, but just shy of the out-of-catchment place we needed. So proud of her, but still feel guilty about putting her through it - even though she loved the grammars on visiting and it was her choice. She even thanked me for keeping her going when she was faltering...

I honestly don't think I would do it again. Even with a willing and very resilient DD. Or at the very least I would do it in a much more measured way and make sure I'd got a tutor that she clicked with better and who tailored the work more so that it wasn't so painful.

Do bear in mind that I may be biased because she didn't get a place. It might have felt more worthwhile otherwise... But would I push an unhappy child to keep going? I don't think so, as many PPs have said, keep interested and involved and have tutors for GCSEs/problem areas later on if need be.

I would get a tutor that doesn't give piles of homework as it's totally unnecessary if she is academic enough to cope with the grammar school work once she gets in. DD had a similar tutor years ago for a few weeks and it was awful. We switched to one who only asked for 30 mins to an hour each week and the whole experience was so much easier. DD did really well in the exam proving that the hours of work expected by the first tutor would have been totally pointless.

I also found small group tutoring was much better (and cheaper!) than 1:1.

The point of the 11plus (whether you agree with it or not) is to identify pupils who can think on their feet, learn independently and apply concentration. Your daughter is self-identifying as not being in this category. Don't forget that getting her into a grammar is only the start, she will need to be a self-motivated, fast learner for the next 5 or even 7 years. Homework battles are far worse with teens who are not in the right learning environment for their personality or learning style. Don't knock the comps until you have visited and chatted to staff - you may be pleasantly surprised. Most pupils do best in a school in which they feel comfortable and supported, rather than one in which they are struggling to fit into a mouldy which is not natural to them. She is only 9 so may mature in her attitude to learning next year, but over tutoring and homework stress is going to have the opposite effect to the one you are aiming for.

If she's having to do this level of tutoring and homework to be in with a chance of getting into a grammer, then grammer is probably not the place for her. She is likely to continue needing additional tutoring and lots of work at home to keep up with those children who got in with much less tutoring. Is that how you want the next 9 years to be like for her and your family?

As a few others have said above:

If we were talking about a super selective in London creaming off the top 4% or whatever, I would be relaxed about the grammar school thing.

If the top 25% are going to the grammar, I would try very very hard to get her in.

It sounds like you need a different tutor.

Be skeptical of anyone making vague comments about how "if she can't get in without tutoring she clearly shouldn't be there." The 11 plus contains material not typically covered in state primaries (why d'you think the rich shell out for prep schools that prep specially for these tests?). If she is going to pass from a typical state primary, she will need either to be a very self-motivated kid who does a lot of reading and studying off her own bat, or she'll need to do extra work with you and with a tutor. How are you supposed to ace XYZ when you have not covered XYZ? It's no different to studying for a driving test IMO.

(FWIW, I hate the grammar school system. But if I was stuck in an area which had GS, I would put my kid's education first, not refuse the 11 plus simply to prove a point).

"The point of the 11plus (whether you agree with it or not) is to identify pupils who can think on their feet, learn independently and apply concentration"

No it isn't. The point of the 11+ is to identify supported middle class children who have been taught how to jump through the required hoops to get them to a school where they will be protected from the hoi polloi.