TUTORING CHILDREN THOUGHTS....

[bijou3]

Is IQ genetic or environmental?

With so many parents opting to Tutor their children for entrance into Grammar or selective independent schools one has to wonder if Grammar schools are selecting the boroughs brightest or are they selecting the boroughs best trained?

Do parents worry about the consequences of tutoring their children for highly selective schools and the possible repercussions that may develop over time if a child is unable to keep up?

How can we as parents gauge how good a school is if most of the parents are tutoring their children?

Soupdragon - I was being devil's advocate before. However, I am old enough to have taken GCE 'O'-Levels. The alternative was CSEs which were a very different level of qualification to an 'O'-Level. No GCSEs in my day!

Also, I know, perhaps fortunately for us, that my children will work hard and not stop other children learning through disruptive behaviour. They may even appreciate their education (after a fashion ) and respect their teachers and be kind to other children.
Regarding deserving a place at a school I think that's all you can really ask !

Evilclown It is a tough world out there and no-one else will fight your children's corner. However, I agree that it is the better off that end up going to grammar. This is why I think the 2-tier system is socially divisive and should be scrapped. However, until that is done, I think it is reasonable for parents to do their best within the current system.

ReallyTired - you are right, my DS doesn't do a lot of screen based stuff - at the moment he builds lego (Starwars models) and watches lego reviews on YouTube. Not much TV, no Wii, Nintendo, DX... so plenty of time to play.

Well, my DS doesn't learn any maths at school, maybe he thinks about lego? He is getting a kickstart with maths from me and hopefully will work better in school next year. Starting in a good middle set - not at the very bottom.

An hour a day's tutoring for a 6 year old is utter madness. Children have to learn how to learn but doing it on that scale means they will never learn to learn independently and it won't help them in the long term at school.

I wasn't tutored for grammar 35 years (!) ago. I don't think tutors had been invented then. We did a couple of practice papers in class and then had the exam. Only it wasn't called an exam it was a test that we had to sit in the school hall to do rather than our classroom. No pressure at all. I passed easily and did well at school.

Our local grammar actively encourages tutoring to ensure that they maintain their position in the league tables. I won't be sending ds there even if he manages to pass without tutoring (I will do with him what was done with me and think that will be sufficient if he is bright enough). Children are either sufficiently intelligent for grammar or they aren't and no amount of tutoring changes that. If a child who is naturally in the middle of the class at primary is tutored and passes it is very likely they will struggle at grammar and require on going tutoring. What kind of miserable school life would that be?

Your post seems a bit confused Mollie

• I hope you might send your DS to the grammar if he does pass the test ?

I passed the 11+ (or equivalent) years ago and went to the grammar school.

(But I'm pretty sure I'd never seen a practice paper before we sat the real thing. Very little fuss was made in those days - perhaps in an attempt to be fair to all ? Who knows ?)

Great school. I loved my school days !

Juggling no he won't go to the grammar that requires pupils to be tutored once they are there in order to maintain the school's league place. I will send him to another grammar that is a fab school and does very well in the league tables without putting loads of pressure on parents to employ tutors. Sorry my post wasn't very clear, was it?! The slight spanner in the works is we are in catchment for tutoring grammar but not for the one I'd want, although we are close enough to get a place most years.

LeQueen I know of average dcs who were tutored, got their grammar school places and now need continual tutoring just to keep up. What is the point of doing that? If your dd is naturally able then she should get a place without tutoring.

"Grammar schools are not intended for average children." Agreed. But they are not intended solely for affluent middle class children either. So something's definitely gone wrong there.

Surely though a grammar can't "require it's pupils to be tutored"

And I'm surprised if there is so much pressure from school for tutoring because my DD has been at excellent secondary for a couple of years now, and I'm sure I've never seen tutoring brought up as an idea by the school.
(Was surprised though to find out that my friend's children (who also go there) have had tutors)

Also I kind of feel that DH and I help the DCs ourselves as much as we can.
Both well educated and I've been a teacher, though not currently.

I'd be more inclined to do practice papers and/or have some tutoring to increase likliehood of getting into a good school than to feel pressurised to keep it up throughout secondary school.

I'm more with LeQueen on this - good luck to DD1

Oh yes they can. I thought it was very odd the first time I heard about it and didn't believe it. I've now heard the same from four different sources (none of whom know the others). Parents are told that if they are unwilling to do so then their dcs may be happier elsewhere. Of course the parents are complicit in arranging the tutoring to ensure their dcs stay at the school. There is a huge amount of snobbery attached to it all. It has made me realise that you need to look beyond school results in assessing whether a school really is any good.

There seems to be a lot of different ideas on this thread about what tutoring is. Some people believe it is hiring a specialist tutor to prepare a child for the 11 plus while others seem to think any academic activity a parent does with a child is tutoring.

I do lots of academic stuff with my children and have done since they were very small. I enjoy it and so do they. I don't see anything wrong with the poster who does an hour a day of reading and maths with their six year old. If they both enjoy it, how is it negative? What are people proposing we do? Shout at parents who take KS1 children into museums at the weekend because they are gaining an unfair advantage over another child and stressing out their child with all this learning?

OP, I have one child at grammar and one who is going to the comp. I don't believe that innate intelligence counts for very much at all. Children become intelligent as a consequence of having an interest in learning and having access to adults who are prepared to provide them with academic and cultural experiences.

Why do people keep saying 'What is the point of tutoring your child, just so they can keep up with a group of extra bright children in a grammar school?" isn't the answer in the question? I'd never advocate taking away a child's social life and playtime, but teaching a child that they can achieve the highest levels through hard work is a great attitude, isn't it? Slave driving them is one thing, but going the extra mile is another. A good thing IMO.

So you'd send your dc to a school where they struggle and have to be tutored just to keep up? How miserable would your dc's school and home life be then? Failing at school and having to put in extra hours being tutored in order to not fail quite so much (but probably not much more than that). I can't imagine anything worse and it sounds like pushyness in the extreme.

Children at prep schools are effectively tutored from nursery up. Imagine a class of 16 (sometimes less in our local prep) with a full time TA, so a ratio of 1:8. Our prep has a homework club after school, lots of 'enrichment' activities which are skillfully designed to build logic and promote higher order thinking skills. It's just an entirely different experience from the state primary down the road with 30 in class before you even look at any at any other difference.

Children at the prep receive more hours of instruction, are taught to value and enjoy hard work. I could go on. Yet when someone hires a tutor (at our local primary) to come once or twice a week in the run up to the 11 plus everyone is horror struck. Many think the child can't be bright enough etc. Yet the child at the prep has had far more one-to-one with a teacher (over the years) than any child at the state primary.

We all do our best for our children. Many children at tutoring don't get one to one even. They are in a group of five and get an hour and 20 minutes a week. I agree with you Cortina that there are double standards. State school children get very little one to one attention if they have no special needs.

I have to laugh about the enrichment activites. My son's local STATE primary has 23 different clubs after school.

I think the difference between state primary and prep really takes off at year 3. Ie. they do proper lab work in science, learn French, possibly Latin all with specialist teachers. It is like starting secondary school at 7/8 years old.

An hour and twenty minutes once a week in a group of 5 hardly constitutes tutoring in my book. I know mothers who have a dedicated tutor who comes three days a week for three hours plus after school. The parents hire in specialist science tutors once or twice a week in addition to this.

It's like having an mentor and expert on call, building on children's weaknesses and inspiring them with their enthusiasm for learning etc. The tutor also gradually backs off from the elder children to encourage independence. I've seen stellar GCSE grades from this approach from children who were regarded as average by the school.

I might even do it myself in time to be honest if we could afford it. These children are well rounded and enthusiastic learners believe it or not.

This thread is making me think I might get more involved in helping my children with their school work ...

wot custardcake said.

My dc are at GS, neither were tutored, but both had practice papers and learnt the types of VR and NVR questions so that they could tackle them. You wouldn't send kids into a maths exam without teaching them how to do sums, so what's the difference?

They also had maths and English papers. The maths wasn't covered at primary, so we did that.

It's about sensible preparation, as are all exams.

My DS took an entrance exam and did practice papers. He had no tutor, except for me. He would not have passed if he hadn't done them because they are only starting to learn the entrance exam level of work now at school and had not done it at the time the entrance exam was sat.

MollieO - "an hour of tutoring for a 6 yo is utter madness.

DS started school aged 4 - way too early, he just wanted to play and that's what he did! However, the UK system expects other things. At age 6 he couldn't add up beyond 10, so I decided to give him a kickstart.

Maths - 15 min in the morning and 15 min in the evening. The other 1/2 hour is reading, spellings and occasional HW - everyone has to do that though.

I can't see how that is madness?! Within 6 months DS has caught up, is in a good Y2 maths set and enjoying it because he finds it easy.

In Y3 I will keep monitoring the situation and can hopefully let him swim alone again.