Is it the norm to have tutors for primary school children these days?

[Sugarbeach]

I didn't think it was the norm, but it seems that it is the norm in some part of the country (or the world even). DD is progressing well and is happy at her school, she is about to start Yr 3 where the work is expected to be more formal and there will be a ramping up of the homework I imagine. I was going to just leave the school and teacher to do their job, and not intervene too much unnecessarily. I'm paranoid and thinking whether the majority of children get lots of tutoring at home, so that it seems to be a good school or whether it IS a good school.

So..
is tutoring the norm in your opinion?
Is it mainly done for struggling subjects, or to hot house, or for 11+, or to make up or the lack of teaching at school?

I'm interested to know, it's so different to my days, I feel like I've been living under a rock....

Interesting to see where the biggest age group is. Poor kids. We were learning to climb trees at that age.

Becoming increasingly common I think.

Those that have been exposed to the material in advice and consistently practise seem to have a huge advantage. I think it will only happen more. We are told by the school that the onus is on us, we are the children's first and foremost educator.

Well each to their own, but I will choose to leave the rat race and teach my kids the joy of life. If they learn something on the way great. Better to be a well rounded happy person than top of the class. Life skills will be important to employers too. I could rant all day as I really think its an awful trend, makes me so sad. But Ill stop.

nigglenaggle I don't think the two things are mutually exclusive.

DC have just had six weeks off. Mine had nearer to nine weeks.
Historically, DC would have spent this time helping their parents with the harvest. Dawn to dusk work.

Not so miuch these days. I don't think an hour a week of maths is a tragedy . Still leaves a hell of alot of time for climbing trees no?

Fair point. Perhaps I've misunderstood but are the majority of people not talking about year round tutoring though?

Nigglenaggle you can enjoy life and a childhood as well as being tutored!
Tutoring is what? at most 1hr a week? some homework adding up to 2hrs a week?
Plenty of time left over to climb trees and enjoy life which my kids do.

The thing I find that takes away from kids enjoying the climbing trees type of life is tv and computer/games consoles.

Tansie - you are clearly very lucky to have a child whose difficulties are, actually, not unusual, then... if you had a child whom you had had to spend many hours teaching how to roll over, crawl, pull to stand, walk, pull up his trousers, wash his hair, do up buttons etc, etc, you wouldn't have quite so much horror at the idea of him sulking a little when you asked him to try out ways to improve his creative writing and comprehension...

It's amazing how people ask why some people don't appear to need to teach their children how to read, yet seem to think all children should find walking and talking and self-care eventually comes naturally to them with just the tiniest bit of encouragement and modelling of the right way to do it. Personally, I found my children needed nothing more than lots of exposure to book reading and lots of encouragement to do that, but my ds1 needed intensive tuition and muscle building exercises for all things physical. He learnt how to move by rote. I do not view the way he learnt to read in at all the same light, although what I did with him is without doubt the reason why he learnt to read when he did - he couldn't have done it in a vacuum, but he didn't need to do it in 15 minute chunks in a formal way at particular times of day, either.

Exactly Jahan and wordfactory.

These statistics probably don't even delve into tutoring by parents. Almost 30% @ 5. Gosh! Shocking.

The statistics seem pretty pointless to me - they don't tell you the reasons for tutoring at particular ages. As for parental tutoring, you'll never get an accurate answer for that, because what one parent counts as tutoring another parent counts as doing what they thought all parents ought to be doing virtually all day, every day, not limiting it to particular times of day and calling it "tutoring."

rabbit, as your post implies, all children are different. Everyone has a 'different' method of 'teaching'. Everyone has a different 'style' of learning.
To put people in particular box if they tutor and another box for those who let kids climb trees is not helpful. My kids are tutored at home by me and they climb trees. What box will people put me in?!

We are still not getting to the crux of the problem though. What can schools do more of to support parents/develop well the next generation of tax payers?!

Tutoring could be for anything. Not necessarily academic tutoring so the stas need to be backed up with evidence. Say at 5 a lot of children do ballet that would be classed as tutoring.

If things like ballet and swimming lessons and football coaching count in the statistics, it's a shame it's only 30% of children who can access such privileges.

blisterpack - thank you for getting my point - that immigrant parents are often much more motivated about their kids' education and try that much harder than the native population; which is why many outperform kids which have English as a first language even though they learn it as a second language.

I went to one of the country's top grammar schools - when I went, over 50% of the pupils were from ethnic monirities; now that figure is even higher (65% from families without English as a first language). This must reflect the priority that many immigrants put on education; it certainly doesn't reflect the local demographic.

Tansie - I have to agree with your son that that sounds a pretty dry way to teach 'creative' writing ie not very creative at all.

Why not just discuss the writing he enjoys reading, look at what he likes about them, and set him a very 'free' title/goal so that he can genuinely create something he likes himself.

As an English teacher, I loathe this modern emphasis on using long words, posh connectives etc. Those will come naturally if a child reads widely and is writing with passion. It's like trying to paint a work of art where you are focusing on every line being 'neat' - it kills the creativity. If he's writing creatively, let it be fun! For both of you!

And I'd agree with rabbitstew - if failing to use a variety of connectives is his worst failing,I'd hardly describe your ds as 'struggling'.

bread I agree with you (once or twice is allowed)

When I was at uni. 50% of students were Indian at medical school. They were children of immigrants, 2nd and 3rd generation. Does not mean they were not middle class and does that mean that their parents were pushy and they did not climb trees as children. Most at the school had a parent who was a doctor. This was motivation enough.

I know that you've mentioned the name of your old school bread. 65% with a language other than English as their first language is an extraordinary figure, no? Given the school's results. Or have I grown parochial?

Silibilimili why would having a doctor as a parent motivate, in itself?

Yellow, it is an extraordinary figure.

And probably explains why the school's exam results and leavers' destinations are now very weighted towards science rather than arts subjects - one reason I decided not to send my English-loving dd there.

yellow, I don't know the answer. Maybe it's what they 'know', in terms of choosing a profession. They see mummy or daddy as a doctor and want to be one themselves when try grow up. I think it does work like that a little. I know a family who are all teachers.

Gosh, I've just looked at the breakdown of A2 results for 2011. It's absolutely striking bread, in terms of science v humanities and art. I'm guessing that it wasn't like that in your day? I'm really, really surprised at the imbalance.

just touching on the wholeclass/race issue wasent there studies years ago.

saying it wasent young indian boys -bottom of class.

It was white working class boys.

Also the gender gap between boys and girls exam results.

Theres was a a programme few years ago bbc2schools season about gareth malone the choir master and his school for boys in essex primary for a term.

There were no make teachers at the school.
some kids from single parent families and had no male role modell.
ut the biggest thing was boys learn in different ways and should be taught seperartly-

Now I think state uk schools moves away from boys and girls.
Even lots of independant are co-ed these days but some do split boys and girls up for core subjects of maths, english and science.

So I think there are other issues that schools not addressing that a pushy parent can.

blisterpack Fri 07-Sep-12 10:19:16
It is the norm around here but not in the lower levels of primary, just around the 11+ years. There was a mum I know though who from Year 3 wanted her DD to have a "private school standard" education while going to a state primary so the child used to be tutored at home after school by a teacher from a private school.

Just curious did she explain what she meant by this? what are they teaching the child same topics as school or latin and other topics as read the afterschooling on well trained mind forum and baffled how they fit it all in.

In the culture I come from it is the norm to follow in your father (or mother's) footsteps, so you have 10 generations of doctors etc

However I observed this to be very different in England, I know plenty of doctors, architects, lawyers whose children went to do different paths, it is also acceptable for a child of a professional to choose a non-academic route, whilst in my culture it would bring shame to the family (I am not saying it's right or wrong, but just pointing out the social pressures are very different!!!).

There are still plenty of doctors' children becoming doctors, because it's something they feel they know and understand and there is a certain amount of pride in carrying on a family tradition... it's just that some doctors' children feel they know too much about the profession to want to enter it, particularly if they have had many years experience of their parents telling them that medicine isn't what it used to be and there is now too much defensive medicine and bureaucracy and far less of a sense of vocation. You also find fewer teachers' children going into teaching than used to be the case for the same reason. These people go off to try alternative careers (generally to find that most professions suffer from the same problem - there aren't as many idealists in the world as there used to be, it would seem, or not enough outlets for them...). As for the idea of bringing shame on a family - I can't think of a more unpleasant and unhealthy method of forcing peoples' hands.

I looked into tutoring for ds2 out of desperation. His mainstream school was failing him terribly. I just wanted I'm to learn to read and write.

No way I could have afforded it. £30-40 per hour in my area. That's almost what we spend on food a week.

I don't think it's abusive to tutor your children but I don't think it's slack not to.

I wish people wouldn't keep implying (inferring?) that either is true.

Actually, no, I probably can think of worse ways of forcing someone's hand, but any highly manipulative way of preventing someone from doing what they feel is right makes me squirm. And it isn't always right to follow your parents.