@Sammyp235 Would it be unfair for your friends who are private tutors to tutor their own children for the eleven plus?
If they have children, they would just give them the full works regardless of if they thought their children were Einstein, and regardless if they thought it was fair or not. How would you know, and why did you not think about that? They have expertise, and they were you telling something valuable ...
My daughter had loads of private tutoring for the eleven plus, despite the fact that we invested heavily in her education and activities from an early age. Could not at all afford prep school. I really wish I could have.
So, I teach biology, chemistry, physics at GCSE, and chemistry and physics at A Level.
I have worked as a supply teacher at over a hundred comprehensive schools. What I saw going on in the gross majority of those comprehensive schools as per the sheer chaos and mayhem, is the reason I have only one child, and the very reason that one child went to a very highly selective girls grammar school. And, one of the reasons my marriage broke down. I was never going to risk another child having the faintest chance of attending a comprehensive school in the face of what I had seen with my own eyes, and in the face of a shortage of financial resources. I was put under immense pressure from my Ex, Ex's family, my family, and Ex's freinds, from within and without the UK.
I also tutored one GCSE student in physics privately, his sister at A Level physics, and two other students at A Level chemistry. They all did very well indeed, and the A-Level students got into the universities they wanted to go to.
When it was my daughter's turn to sit the aforementioned exams, I just pulled out all the stops eight months prior too, and we did the full works, which was in addition to the huge amount of work she was bringing home from school.
She needed A's to get into the schools sixth form, she got A*'s and one A. She needed similar requirements and even more to get into her RGU. She's now there.
I was also providing answers to her friends queries, in some cases written, for no financial gain, as they were her friends and it did not even come into my mind to do so.
I also know that some of her friends had private tutors in Maths at A-Level in the very least, and probably in other subjects as well.
I do not so much believe in natural ability as I believe in starting kids on an all inclusive age appropriate educational experience from the age of four.
Everyone says my daughter is intelligent and have being saying it for years, to the point where she has come to believe it herself. I have taken great care to point out to her every now and again, that her "intelligence" is as a result of the advantages she has consistently received from a very young age.
Why? Because I want her to realise that intelligence is cultivated, not innate, so that if she wants a child in the future, she knows she has her work cut out for her. She is going to have to engage that child in an all round inclusive educational experience from the age of four. Of course we'll help.
I for one have learnt my lesson not to have any more children though. Not enough money ... do I want my child to go to one of the over one hundred comprehensive schools I have worked at?
Maybe one, in Harpenden (I live in Barnet). There are four other Catholic Girls Schools I would not mind if push had come to shove, however, those schools are no where near where I live except for one, worse still I am not Catholic, I am atheist. So it would depend entirely on the catholic schools disposition to such people. I might find it uncomfortable going to church listening to a sermon, though I love listening to church music and I love church architecture.
So desperate is the situation as regards secondary education in this country, some people have been known to change their religion. I don't blame them. Do anything it takes ... The government is not looking out nearly enough for everyone's child's education.
Get involved in your child's education, move house if you have the money, change your religion, get outside help, do anything you know of that I have not mentioned here, your child will thank you in the future, especially if they go on to have children of their own. Then they will really know what it's like to be a parent in the face of a sinister education system: Telling parents they do not need to prepare their children adequately for the 11+, their child does not need a tutor ...
OMG, ... and more importantly, nowhere near enough at least good, talk less of excellent comprehensive schools to serve even a fraction of the population.
Education is the most important thing we can bequeath to our children.
In summary, would you condemn me for tutoring my own child. Is it so unfair to do so? Who was to stop me? How would you know? I could just tell my daughter never to mention it, no one would be the wiser ... even the government would not know!
So if I can teach my daughter the subjects I know of, what would be unfair in parents who do not have the knowledge in those particular subjects in engaging outside help for their child. You think they should not do anything at all if their child is struggling, and leave it to "natural ability"?
I can't believe you??? You are forgetting the fact that when children have learnt a concept to the extent that they can readily apply it in any situation, it then becomes part of their "natural ability", and people perceive them to be intelligent. No one, no one cares about how their facility with the concept got into their heads in the first place, except perhaps, people doing PhD research into the "development of children's cognitive faculties", if that's what that area of research is known as, Idk. Or, perhaps their parents who may be amazed that their child is indeed intelligent after all, and subsequently take an interest in how the tutor is going about undertaking this conversion.
I never knew people exist on the face of this earth who have set their faces against private tuition ... it is never, ever going to be gotten rid of! That much I can foretell ...