AIBU to think you should have to declare if you've had private tutoring on your UCAS form?

[ArcheryAnnie]

DS and his mates are at a state school and have sent in their UCAS forms, and are getting offers. They are all good kids of varying ability, most of whom get their heads down and work, but it is really noticeable that the kids who have had extensive tutoring in addition to school are the ones who have the best predicted grades and who are therefore getting the offers they want.

This is obvious, of course. Tutoring works, otherwise people wouldn't pay for it. I have no criticism of anyone who can afford it helping their kid in this way - and plenty do. 42% of kids in London get private tutoring, and the national average is something like 27%.

But other factors in your life that might confer advantages or disadvantages - like going to a private school, or growing up in care - are asked for there in plain sight on your UCAS form. Tutoring, which has such a big impact on your A-level grades, isn't asked about at all. It seems only fair that this is asked about too.

So - AIBU to think the UCAS form should ask how much private tutoring you have had?

Tutoring is great
but when do you stop?
25?
35?
45?
if your kids are used to being spoon fed and helped,
when should you stop?
when should they take responsibility for their own lives
failure to launch
is not a prize to aim for ...

Well, I wouldn’t stop at 45 actually. What’s wrong with lifelong learning?

Why is a tutor spoon feeding, but a teacher isn’t?

My Y6 daughter’s tutor is a KS2 teacher, who does exactly what she does in the classroom. Just it takes a fraction of the time to cover the same topic - and she can stay longer on bits my daughter doesn’t get, or race past the bits that come easily. Whereas, my daughter will come home from school bored having had an hour of introduction and basic percentages.

Far from being spoon fed by a tutor, she’s being challenged. At school, she’ll be shown how to calculate the area of a square. Then she’ll come home and calculate the volume of a cylinder.

In English, it’s not a case of being spoon fed a sentence with an adequate but single adjective in it. It’s a case of her tutor challenging her to be more descriptive than that one simple adjective - metaphors, similes.

I had parents evening last week. Her teacher laughed when I asked what would be the best area for her to focus on for improvement. Nowhere, apparently. Now that is spoon feeding - spooning in the Y6 syllabus and expecting nothing more, from a child who is able and eager for more.

If your experience of a tutor is spoon feeding not challenging, you have the wrong tutor.

@amispeakingenglish forced to keep up HOW?

Whether you are tutored or not, you sit the same SATS papers, GCSEs, A levels (and other qualifications) at school.

All of those are achievable without tutoring - certainly were to my two stepsons approx 5 years ago for A levels.

You talk as if the government has made A levels harder because 40% of tutored kids were doing well - and therefore those A levels were now too hard for your children without tutoring. Which isn’t true.

Some A levels are too hard for some children. But there is no A level that is too hard for any untutored child.

You didn’t have to choose a tutor.

What is wrong with tutoring?
Ultimately, a degree grade boils down to an individual student’s own capacity to interpret. No amount of tutoring will define a student’s final graduate result.
If you can afford tutoring, great, but if a student has the ability then great too.
If you’re worried that your child won’t get on in life if they haven’t been tutored , then you need to get a grip.
I have known students from private schools and international schools who have left long before their final year.
I have also know students who were obliged to sit foundation years who got high grades in their degree.
Tutoring only helps to a certain degree pre uni.
Once a student is on it’s own, tutoring bears little fruit.
Similarly, does a child who has a parent stay at home and read with their child every day and helps with their homework, have a child that is more brilliant, than a child who’s parents both work, who is taken to a breakfast club and stays at after school club and then is collected by a childminder ?

Totally unworkable but I appreciate you are trying to even out some disadvantages. I grew up with intelligent, well educated and very engaged parents. They supported my education, spent hours helping me with homework and were always encouraging. I was privileged to have this. I would say that my entire upbringing was far more of an advantage than someone who was tutored in maths and English for a few years for an hour or so a week.

Other factors are most definitely not there in plain sight - there is nothing on the form where you state whether your parents had mental health problems, or you were abused as a small child, or you grew up on the street, or you moved house 4 times in a year, or you lost 6 relatives during your GCSE year, or your parents weren't/were involved in your education, whether your parents read to you or didn't, whether your dad was an alcoholic ... Need I go on? Loads of people have advantage over others. It's sad but true. We cannot make everything even. it's a sad fact of the world. Get over it.

Tutoring isn't a bad thing.

My daughter is intelligent and driven and wants to do well - this isn't necessarily a good thing as she pushes herself hard. We're happy for her to tryher best but she expects A and A throughout. Add to this being off sick for pretty much a week at a time (she has what they think is IBS - still trying to confirm) on a regular basis and you can add stress into that equation too. She makes up the work she misses each time but as a little extra support she has a maths and science tutor. Maths is fortnightly, science is weekly or fortnightly. Note, her predicted grades were A / A before the tutor. This is GCSE by the way - but we'll do the same for A levels if required.
We go without in order to pay for tutors because we think that supporting her at this time is more important than nights out, takeaways etc. Why on earth should we have to declare that? We've made sacrifices where others have chosen not to? Thst doesn't make us better parents, it's just right for us. Of course there are some who don't have the option to pay but there are also many who choose not to. Why is it wrong to support your child? Particularly in over- subscribed schools where the teaching can be pretty poor, or in our case where she misses more school than we'd like.

I had a tutor for my maths GCSE because I was thick and didn't think I would pass it otherwise.

I think I'm pretty musical, but didn't learn a musical instrument properly. No provision at school and it wouldn't have occurred to my parents to pay for lessons. They did in fact buy a piano, but said, "There you go," and couldn't understand why my progress was so limited so they sold the piano.

Now, should I have been able to rock up at the Royal College of Music and get the same chance as someone who had had years of lessons and practised hours a day? I know a couple of classical musicians and their parents were manically invested in their dc's musical life.

I can't disagree that many people have an unfair advantage. Atm I am painfully aware that dd is competing against native speakers in a MFL A Level which is designed - the clue is in the title - as a foreign language. It is impossible to identify who has an advantage here and to what extent, and the same goes with tutoring. Was it to make up a shortfall or to steal a march on others?

I took an extra job on to help pay for sons tutor - we are not privileged I guess I just felt that I wanted to give him the best chance I could at achieving the best he could. I cleaned some pretty disgusting houses for 6 years to do this - I don’t see why I should have to declare this as a privilege!!

I did overtime at work to pay for online maths tutoring for my son at A level maths. He was at a state school with large class sizes and lacked confidence in his maths ability. You do whatever is necessary to help your children