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....

And to earn a living and support yourself, you need more than academic skills, so it's a good thing most children don't spend all their time both in and outside of school learning how to be academics...

My motive for getting my very average at English DS2 tutored wasn't 'love of learning' or for 'educational stimulation' or as something he pleaded with me to do... it is to make as sure as we can be that he'll pass a bloody GCSE thus not have dozens of future possibilities denied him because he didn't cross that hurdle.

It'd be luvvly it it were all or any of the above but the reality is, in this cut throat world, he has the get English and Maths to stand any chance at all of buying himself some choice later on.

It has been my observation that those who feign horror at forcing poor children to be privately tutored out of school time either a) can afford private education with 'private' tutoring in-built or a house in a great catchment of a school that meets their DC's needs or b) whose DC are sufficiently clever that any tutoring is for 'icing the cake/guilding the lily'/ UCAS Personal Statement purposes.

FWIW DS2 went off to Y7 today to a Great Comp, as in 'best GCSE results for a non-selective comp in the county' but I'm not entirely sure that they'll meet his needs as I suspect they possibly won't even notice him in his class of 28 til about mid December!

I'm all for dc learning that learning is important for life choices as well as for its own enjoyable sake, but what I object to is the volume of anxiety that is being passed on to said dc by some (not all) parents

The message can unwittingly become 'if you don't stress/achieve higher grades/compete non-stop then you and your life will be a disaster'. Which I'm sure is not what anyone is aiming for.

I think it is entirely possible and desirable to pass on to your DC the idea that learning is great fun, life long and highly useful perhaps even imperative to find well paid work as an adult.

My DDs were tutored. It's normal around here (west Kent) where we have huge competition for grammar schools. If we lived in a less selective area of Kent, I would not have bothered and I'm sure they would have been fine but you needed to be sure of a practically perfect 11plus score to be in with a chance in this area. Once they were at school, they did not struggle (as some posters think tutored children do), in fact they thrived and did very well in public exams.

Definitely not the norm here. I know one girl who does a language outside school and one who had help with maths because she is very shy and just didn't ask for help.

Good God no!!!

Q: 'The message can unwittingly become 'if you don't stress/achieve higher grades/compete non-stop then you and your life will be a disaster'. Which I'm sure is not what anyone is aiming for'...

well, no, perhaps not that directly but the simple unavoidable fact remains- there are far fewer jobs for duffers these days. When I was 16, they weren't quite the 10 a penny they used to be but frankly, the sort of jobs available to the sub-GCSE kids today are poverty line at best. And now, thanks to Tony, everyone and his dog sits GCSEs, it's made a whole lot easier for an over-subscribed potential employer of the less able 16 year old to get a truckload of applications and decide to wipe out half of them at a stroke as they don't have Eng Bacc, or 5 GCSEs inc Maths and Eng, or 5 GCSEs etc.

It'd be so easy for a DS like mine to be effectively unemployable if he doesn't pass Maths and English GCSEs. But for that I don't expect him to 'stress' unduly or 'compete non-stop', just not ease off!

As an aside, another reality for the very able is that they will be competing in a global market with children who accepted stress, higher achievement and non-stop competition as the norm!

Another reality for the very able is that they have a choice between extremely high stress and an early death from stress if they can't cope with it, or nabbing the easier, second-tier-down jobs from those who aren't as able, or making their own luck regardless of exam results. If you don't HAVE to join in with the worst of the rat race, you don't have to join in. Those who will survive the best are those who are emotionally resilient, least reactive to severe anxiety and stress, naturally hard working and reasonably to very bright. Passing lots of exams and finding it all a bit too stressful won't get you anywhere you really want to be and one whiff of it causing you undue anxiety and you'll be on the job scrap heap, anyway, however good your exam results. Exam results are only the start, not the end of the process - the stress continues for the rest of your life and real jobs and businesses are not actually like academic examinations.

"Exam results are only the start". Yes, indeed. That's why I am getting my DS2 tutored, so he improves his chances of choosing what happens next.

I chose to get good exam results all by myself. I would have reacted violently to my parents assuming I needed help to achieve it. It was my choice to make.

Mind you, I was never at risk of doing particularly badly in my exams. I can entirely see why wanting to ensure your ds does reasonably well in English and maths GCSEs is not a neurotic aim for a parent...

I agree that EQ is as important if not rather more so than IQ in terms of success and happiness post-school.

But that does not make academic success irrelevant - it is good for dcs to get the best grades they can so as not to close doors too early, even if they decide they don't want to go through those doors later anyway. Good grades do matter because they confer the ability to choose, rather than be limited to the few things that choose you. Agree with Elibean that it is hard to convey this without raising stress/fear which is not constructive or necessary - after all, one can't go through every door anyway. Or one can build one's own doorframe.

Sorry, metaphor exhausted now. :)

Actually, I think a modicum of 'fear' and 'stress' in an 11 year old isn't always necessarily a bad thing. I would far, far rather that DS found out around now that actually, passing these exams is rather important and yes, there are potentially unfavourable consequences down the line if you don't. Therefore, I am going to support you to have a good crack at passing them. Of course there will be a Plan B, but I think we should exhaust Plan A first.

It is interesting that privately educated DCs are 'stressed' a lot earlier than state school kids- the result being many know exactly what is expected of them!

And of course, there are many levels of stress between 'Don't worry, darling, mummy will always be here to make it right', and 'You fail, you die', aren't there?

I have a tutor for dd,yr 3 this year.she needed extra help in reading and is now hitting her targets. This year will focus on Maths,I told her teacher a couple of years ago I was getting her extra help and they were very supportive,said get all the extra help I can get her.

Tansie makes thourght provoking good points.

I only read yesterday about new tiger free school

in uk teaching mandarin and other chinese schooling.

When you see the education league tables globally.

The asian countries china/singapore doing well but are pushy and pressured.

we live in global world of free trade and movement.

I mean just look at tradespeople who feel they undercut by eastern europeans.

The job market I feel currently is more competatitive than ever.
high unemployment
cuts in private and public sectors.
up to 10people chasing 1 job,.

Even graduates not getting jobs so where does that leave

the pupil whos got poor gcses/alevels or none at all?

my husbands an employer and he closed a job vacancy down as within 2days for 8hour temporary position over 100 applications.
He said hes interveiwed people who had done quite high power jobs in past or seems vastly over qualified as the markets forced people to trade down.

If they equalised min wage for 21 and under 21s would make it easier.

I have a 14year old stepson starting year 10this week.
hes had a bad school experience some behavioural issues and learning difficulties.

Hes doing foundation single award science .foundation maths, english, gcse pe, art and btec in hospitality.

I worry with his mix of subjects, his behaviour, his mam wont push him , he wont get the grades leave at 16 and be unable to find a job in small town where there are few jobs.

I think most parents want their kids to have a choices and wide range opportunities but bad gcse,s can close those doors to A levels then higher education.

of course depends what they want to do.
But what 13year thinks about that or know what they want to do?

I say that as year 9 they pick gcse options.They also get set on how they performed in year 9 for core subjects english, maths and science.

I think some schools manipulate some pupils and dont always do whats best for pupil to boost their league tables.
I look back at my gcses and wish I had chosen differently.
I also think at age 15when sitting the exams some don't realise its importance.

I have top confess im not naturally bright I had to work at it.
I remember how I felt gcse results day when diden,t get grades I wanted how just missing the c grade in maths closed a few doors to me.

I did get onto a levels through fe college and did well in them but my school 6th form would not even have considered it.
I then went onto uni and got a degree.

But I was in few near bottom sets where class was chaos, hardly any teaching, lots bullying. I did have tutor for french which allowed me to pass french when french teacher wrote me off and predicted me an e. My french tutor was member of my family. I think tutor would have helped me pass maths but I grew up in low income single parent family where i went to nearest school no matter how rubbish it was and wasent pushed or helped.

I hate to call it tutoring prefer to call gentle coaching.

There are bad state and private schools.

But the gaps getting wider in uk.

if childs in state school I really dont blame the parents trying to plug gap between their child and children down the road in the prep school especially if they love selective seniors ie kent.

I feel the whole grammer school not relevant in uk as such a tiny amount mostly concentrated in certain areas parents outside those areas tutor too to make up for shortfall of not getting school they wanted as only have to look at posts where people don;t get any of 3rd choices or their 3rd choice so from the get go they sending their child to school they do not feel fully happy with.

If im considered pushy with my 3 then its for their own good. I feel until they 16 its my job to steer them and support them in their education. My eldest is 6 and struggling with certain things.

agree a lot is confidence and additional help can boost confidence,

Then theres the whole boys girls debate how girls do better and boys need more motivation.

I agree with Tansie entirely.

We couldn't afford private for primary, but I don't want my children to be disadvantaged, so I pay for extras such as music, tennis, swimming, dancing and now I will also start some tutoring.

The tutoring is mainly to make sure any weakness is identified early and plugged - if I had the right training/knowledge or had lots of spare time to acquire it, I could probably manage it myself, but it's becoming increasingly stressful with other children coming up the school.

I also work for a multinational and the job market situation is diabolical. We have people all over the world competing for one vacancy at any level. For graduates or apprentices is even worse, we have handful of these vacancies every year and thousands, yes thousands of applications.

Of course not everyone has to work for a multinational but the choices are very limited if you don't get a decent degree from a decent university, that's just reality right now...

rabbit I really don't recognise all this terrible stress you talk about. Most people I know are highly able and successful. They are not partciularly stressed.

Poorly paid jobs are statistically far more dangerous and those workers have worse health and die younger.

Also, I really don't believe that these esaier second tier jobs will exist in the hnear future. The middle is dying away. Well paid jobs versus low paid jobs. That's where we are heading. And given it looks like the welfare state and the NHS are being dismantled, I know which camp I'd rather my DC make their home.

Don't assume that DC can't cope with their school work and tutoring on top. There's no eveidence to suggest that those DC are unhappy or stressed. Most DC at a bog standard school with a little light tutoring still won't be doing as much as those DC in many private schools and grammars. These kids are robust. They can take it .

Kids all around the world are working hard for and with their families and doing their school work...

Sadly, the levels of stress among French DCs are sky high (international comparisons rates French school children about the most stressed in the world) and I am sure that a lot of that has to do with their ridiculous school time tables and work load. So DCs can get stressed and it is important to watch out for it.

Maybe UK schools are different Bonsoir? I don't know. Or maybe my DC are just horizontal . DS just started his secondary and swanned in without batting an eyelid. All new. Doesn't know a soul. Probably one of the most academic schools in the world. I dropped him this morning and he just smiled and tootled off.

To be honest DH and I don't really do stress. Maybe it's genetic.

UK schools are very different - schools (especially private ones, but state schools do) take on a much greater share of the effort, both in terms of logistics and of learning, that do French schools. I have seen Australian families (who believed themselves to be genetically laid back) become frazzled to the core by French school!

wordfactory, having worked as a solicitor in the City, I've seen lots of stressed and relatively unhappy people in my time, and known someone apparently happy (but clearly not...), who had recently got married, jump in front of a tube train, so I'm afraid I think you are genetically blessed... I regularly thank my lucky stars that my children's particular talents lie in the direction most prized by modern society - these skills have not always been so well valued... I spent most of my school career amazed that I could get away with so many years of doing what I enjoyed rather than having to do what I considered real work and that, apparently, it was supposed to be hard work for me to have people spend their time teaching me all sorts of interesting things, most of which I was actually pretty unlikely to need to know for my future career. btw, English children are, according to the research, among the most stressed and unhappy of all children, anywhere.

I hope it's not the norm, although I was amazed to find out that a couple of my DS's friends in Y6 had tutoring to raise their chances of getting a scholarship to become a day pupil into a selective state boarding school. They kept very quiet about it though! It didn't work so now they are paying the boarding fees....

At the end of Y4 a load of boys in DS1's year had made very poor progression in maths, so the school threw a lot of 1 on 1 sessions at them in Y5 and 6, which did the trick. Y3 and Y4 see a lot of pupils coast along as schools don't seem to focus as much on these years (no SATs to worry about I suppose!) The 1 on 1 sessions were mainly to ensure they achieved the requisite SATs in Y6, which as someone pointed out earlier are mainly for the benefit of the school, not the pupil.

No way could we have afforded private tutoring though (we did look into it in Y4 as he was doing so poorly). If it's a good school then they should be working with parents to ensure that all pupils achieve their potential, with problems being picked up and addressed.

If it's a good school then they should be working with parents to ensure that all pupils achieve their potential, with problems being picked up and addressed.

That doesn't always work however My ds2 is at an ofsted outstanding junior school, his older brother did well there (although more to do with his natural intelligence than the teaching I suspect) and gained a place at a selective private school with a substantial bursery.

Sadly my younger son struggles with literacy, his spelling is terrible and has moved up 1 sub level in writing in 2 years, so I am paying for a lovely TA in his school to help him with his composition and am plodding through the 'apples and pears' spelling scheme with him at home. He has been on a short intervention course within the school, and his work does improve briefly, but he has lost a lot of confidence in this area.

My DD2 was tutored for 3 months last summer and over these holidays for Maths. In Y2 school were not sure she would hit average levels for end of KS2. Hubby and I both felt it was vital to have a good foundation in Maths. (I have seen too many children at secondary school with poor Maths who had trouble with the basics) her tutor really helped her confidence and she even went up a group in Maths. Despite attending an " outstanding school" I felt their expectations were low. She was and is capable of being above average. Will use tutors intermittently to top up. I want her to,have choices in life...education is the key to choices later in life. I think we are in the minority here using a tutor.