Teacher referred me to a tutor

[ShepherdMoons]

dd has been finding the Maths hard at her school. There are a few of the students in her year group (there are 8 of them - small school) who also are finding the homework and Maths difficult. The school don't seem to be able to offer any extra help so I mentioned that maybe a tutor might be needed. The teacher has agreed and given me the number of her friend who is a tutor. I'm going to speak to the tutor but AIBU to think that maybe the school could have offered a bit of help first? It's a lot more expense for us at a time when we are needing to save a bit.

thanks, she's struggled with maths in particular for a while. there are 2 groups mixed in together y3 and a y4 and the younger class is a bit bigger with thirteen kids in it. The class teacher tends to teach them mostly and the TA teaches dd's class which is v small. a few of the parents in my dds class are in the same situation and have had their dcs also crying that they can't do the homeworks and just worried they aren't keeping up.

the class teacher seems certain no other help can be given so she said if they are upset not to do the homework.

So to sum up, your DD is in a composite class of 21 children, comprising 13 year 3 and 8 year 4. There is also a TA. Yet for Y4 they are setting homework that around half the children can’t do. What is the point of that? If they have to set homework it should be appropriate eg practicing what has been covered in class. Hopefully she will have a different teacher next year. If things don’t improve and it effects a few children, I’d contact the head.

I think it’s ridiculous that there are apparently multiple children literally crying over the homework, and none of the parents have just taught the kids themselves.

It’s Y4!

And yes, some parents have dyscalcluia, etc… but I’m willing to bet that all the parents of all of these crying children don’t form an unusual pocket of such.

It just seems really odd to me to jump from multiple kids unable to do homework, to complaining you’ve been given details of a tutor when you asked if you should get a tutor. Where are the interim steps? The discussions on whether homework is consolidation or extension for example?

A decent rule of thumb: If it’s not ok for everyone to do it, it’s not ok for you to do it. It’s certainly not ok for every parent to expect extra help for their darlings. Teachers are leaving the profession in droves as it is due to being overworked. Some days I don’t have a spare five minutes to eat, never mind tutor kids for free.

My son's school had intervention groups in school - they should be doing something.

Just make sure the teacher isn't getting a kickback for any students she refers 😬 However, £40 an hour seems very very reasonable to me for a highly qualified tutor - just make sure they're genuinely good. My cousin had horrendous experiences with rip off merchants before she found a tutor who's worth her weight in gold

OP, next time be clear with the school about the reasonable things you can expect from them. Dropping hints about tutors clearly doesn’t work. You can’t expect the teacher to do do extra teaching outside of lesson time, but you can expect that your child is taught by a qualified teacher at least some of the time, especially in a core subject like maths

Exactly. The expectation for the teacher to essentially tutor for free is ridiculous BUT I would be concerned about the actual quality of the teaching based on what you have said.

I would imagine it is a mixed year class, so more than 8 dc in total, just 8 in that year group. That can itself cause difficulties if the teacher has to differentiate work over a wide range of abilities. Both my dc went to very small village primaries. Teachers had to teach between 3 and 4 year groups in one class.

No need to imagine @haggisaggis as several of us thought the same as you and asked.
There are around 12 Y3s taught maths by the teacher and 8 Y4s usually taught by the TA.
OP hasn’t come back to really explain where the issues are though, and what she’s already done about it.
I would say that the qualified teacher should be leading both ages on maths, then swapping them over to the TA to practice - so Y4 learns new topic with teacher whilst TA does consolidation with Y3, or catch up work with Y4.
Given thar OP wrote this as 8 in a class and had to be pushed for detail, I’m not sure how the teaching really is split.

In this case the mixed class should work in this girl’s favour, as she’s Y4 and has the opportunity to join a Y3 group if really necessary.

@Littleraindrop15 £15 is very very low. I don’t do it much these days but charge £50 ph when I do. It’s just not worth it otherwise.

YNBU for thinking the school should be doing more, IMO. I think it's strange that y4 are being taught by a TA. My son's school have maths and english booster sessions after school for children that are struggling. Unfortunately, they were cancelled due to covid when my son was doing them in Y4 so I looked into a tutor but it was too expensive. I bought cgp books and did them with him at home. We used khan's academy and bbc bitesize to help him grasp the methods. He just did his sats and was only a few marks off greater depth, which is great to say how behind he was a couple of years ago.

I suspect this is about small schools, which are financially disadvantaged by the way that education finances are set up.

Make an appointment to see the head OP. Who is the teacher teaching to, if not one of the eight in a year group? Of course the school should be assuring appropriate differentiation and targeted interventions, if need be

The OP already explained that for maths, the teacher is teacher the 12 Y3s in the same composite class.
Though I don’t disagree with speaking to the head!

spanishsummers · Yesterday 22:25
I suspect this is about small schools, which are financially disadvantaged by the way that education finances are set up

They’re not. Where I am, maximum class size for a single year class is 30, for a composite class it’s 24. This child’s class has 21 DC and has a teacher and TA. There are only 2 year groups in the class. So, pretty much the same as in a larger school with uneven numbers.

In England there is no class size limit on composite classes (generally known as mixed year classes). I have taught 30 reception/Y1s/Y2s and 34 Y3/4/5/6. It's not fun and massively harder than teaching a single year group.