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....

sili there is a peculiar complacancy/arrogance/patronage commonly found among left-leaning white middle class women.

They seem to think they have no limits and that their DC will succeed in life by dint of their white middle-class-dom.

It's alien to me.

wordfactory, that's exactly it.

Are all these stay at home mums left leaning, then????
I don't tend to interpret someone laughing at a child for being able to read as being left wing, tbh, I just interpret it as someone who's a bit of a b*tch.

Mine and dhs parents were immigrants.
Dh's parents got him tutored and he went to a private school, I had no tutoring but parents who ensured I did lots of reading and I went to grammar school.

We both value education as well as all the museums and muddy puddles.
My kids are creative and know how to entertain themselves.
We're fortunate enough that I can work part time so I spend time with kids and they're are quite well travelled. Their lives are not rigid and structured.

I'm still getting my kids tutored.
There is too much competition today. I agree with the poster who says that our children will be up against people from China and India when it comes to jobs.
I work in Canary Wharf and there is every nationalty working there and the City.
It's a global economy out there. There is every nationality working at all levels in various careers. Our children will be competing in an extremely global and competitive market.

rabbitstew, only the middle class ones who hide the fact that they do tutor their child, who keep saying that counting number of leaves on a tree is enough to teach Maths, who think immigrants are uneducated hence they get their children
Tutored etc etc!!

It is common in these parts in year 5 and 6 as we have a grammar school system :(

jahan you speak sense.

'No evidence of children crashing or burning'

Perhaps not (though I'm not sure, haven't researched it). But there is definitely evidence of children suffering from too much pressure and parental anxiety - ask any mental health professional working with kids in an affluent area. I've even heard it mentioned in our London borough at a School Governor's training session (on Safeguarding).

Tutors most certainly do not automatically mean 'too much pressure' - but too much pressure exists. And so does the fallout.

Personally, I have watched two little girls develop nervous tics during their preparation for 7+ entrance into a selective indie near us. The older one still has hers, even though she's apparently settled into her new school as of a year ago. Their younger sister, still at the local state primary, hasn't got one so far.

Not scientific evidence, but to say there is no such thing as kids suffering from stress and anxiety is as daft as saying any degree of stress is a bad thing. Either extreme is going to cause problems, surely.

Sillibilli, I would think of that mum as a neurotic one - regardless of class, political bias, or anything else. IME neurotics come in every class and political colour

Oh I could give you anecdotes about DC who are stressed by the parents splitting up, or moving home or a thousand things that have nothing to do with tutoring or schoolwork or exams.

You can't draw conclusions from it. You just have to trust parents to know what's best for their DC and not assume that because child A finds it all too much, so will child B.

Lots of DC are very robust...

Elibean, I live in a very middle class area. The lady I described is so typical of her peers (or so it seems to me).

Had another 'friend' visiting this week. My dd and I were playing scrabble bingo (made up game with scrabble tiles where DD has to find a word that begins with that letter, make the game up as you go along as she is too young to play adult scrabble at 5). Anyway, this visiting mum was horrified that my DD knows her alphabets capital and small, phonics and how I learnt them... her exact words were, 'I would leave the teaching to the teachers if I were you). DD started reception this week. I have not pushed her. She wanted to learn. We sit down every day to read books for 20 mins and read at bedtime. I bet you I am going to get a reputation before long at school due to this lady knowing I taught my child as a 'pushy' immigrant mum (I was born here but am not WHITE British). I am sure too that these women will take a real delight in my DD failing anything or being average at anything as I am a 'pushy mum'.

Agree with all your posts wordfactory

No, I think I can draw conclusions - not generalizations, though.

Yes, lots of children are very robust. And lots aren't. And lots are inbetween

dd1 definitely needs a bit of pressure, dd2 puts pressure on herself without any help. I know they vary. All I'm saying is that, in the area I live in, there are sectors of society that are very full of precisely the sort of angst and anxiety that produce the woman who laughed (probably enviously) at a YR child who can already read. And it is that angst and anxiety that spreads at an alarming rate, and rains down on small heads needlessly hard - and scarily early - on occasion.

No problem with tutoring per se.

SilliBilli, she sounds like an envious twit, I would take no notice

I disagree in principle with tutoring (paying other people) as to me, it then feels like we are going towards what the education system in China, Japan, India etc is. Our British system which was/is hanging by a small thread at being the 'Best in the World', is surely letting hundreds down if increasing numbers are reverting to tutoring. Surely the answer is somewhere between the tutoring/more homework/smaller class size/parents taking responsibility and playing in muddy puddles!

The excuse that lots of DC are very robust is also the one used by parents who are divorcing and pretending it isn't doing their children any long term harm to have parents who can't live with each other... Amazing how we are supposed to trust parents to know when they are pushing too hard, considering how blinkered most parents seem to be. There are obviously children out there who love being tutored and see it all as a game, or enjoyable, or a privilege. There are obviously also children out there with nervous tics who think that if they don't get an A* in their maths GCSE, then some Chinese immigrant is going to ruin their life by taking every job they ever apply for from under their nose.

SilibiliDs2 is starting reception this week and he knows all his alphabet, upper and lower case and phonics.
He can also add numbers, name loads of dinosaurs and draw chinooks fairly accurately with a 4 yr old hand .
He learnt from nursery, from books that he's interested in himself, his love of air shows and Natural History Museum not by me being pushy.

Your friend is odd.

rabbitstew, I kind of see what you are saying but do not agree completely. If the parents have emotional intelligence and are tuned in enough to their children, 'pushing' just enough or pressing just the right buttons for motivation is a good thing surely. This is the same as a school pushing our kids to learn enough to pass exams surely? So why us it okay for schools/teachers to 'push/set challenges but not the parents?

jagan, let's just say my friend is no longer my friend and I am very cautious about what I tell her.

Silibilimili - it stands to reason that if it has genuinely become the "norm" for parents to use tutors to help them progress through school that not all of these children will have parents with emotional intelligence who know when to stop... Emotional intelligence appears, to me, to be a fairly rare thing, anyway... Personally, I don't think tutors are always a bad thing and haven't ever said so. However, I have said I think it is a shame if they have become the norm for all parents with all types of children, because tutoring a child in subjects they are already doing at school and having to spend time getting a child into a position where he or she can get nearly 100% in a verbal and non-verbal reasoning test pretty much every time, is time taken away from learning and being taught other valuable things in life which school doesn't cover at all (and let's face it, there's one hell of a lot of useful stuff which school doesn't cover...). I also think it really is stretching a point to say that being able to get 100% in VR and NVR tests is of use beyond the 11 plus exam and sets you up for life and teaches you hugely valuable exam technique which you can carry over to the myriad other exams you will get to practice your exam technique on over the rest of the course of your life. So it is a lot of time and emotion spent over a rather silly test, in order to avoid ending up at a bad school as an alternative (ie more stress than fun, if the whole point of the tuition is to get you near-perfect, which for most people would be getting more practice than can possibly be considered fun). In other words, you've got another thing coming if you think you're going to convince me that tutoring your kids is always hugely virtuous and healthy for everyone concerned.

rabbitstew, maybe a year of stress is better than 5 years of stress at a bad school? Also, some stress is healthy. There will be a huge spectrum with extremes at either end but I say sometimes the end justifies the means? What does not kill them will make them stronger?
I am not trying to be flippant but who is the judge and jury of how much pressure is okay and how much is not?

So the question can also be posed that 'should the grammar schools change their testing procedure so that the cramming children have to do is somehow used in the following years? So that the year or so
Of getting ready for these tests goes towards something other than just the entry?

Well, Silibilimili, that might be the case if schools were supposed to prepare children for entry into grammar schools, but state schools aren't allowed to help children prepare for entry into these particular state secondary schools... the test is supposed to find those children who have a natural flair without intensive extra tution and who can cope with the stress of exams without intensive preparation and LAs and state schools have to stick rigidly to that fiction in order not to make a mockery of the state education system in general. And that's before you get onto the fact that age 10 is a somewhat odd age to pick for assessing whether some children are born to be academic and to decide that the vast majority are not.

Silibilimili - I think you totally misinterpreted my post.

I am the child of immigrants myself, so am describing myself when describing aspirational immigrants - certainly not looking down my nose at 'uneducated' immigrants, as you seem to have assumed for some reason.

Wow, you have one big chip on your shoulder.

I am referring to your post a page back saying "A number of people have commented that it is the uneducated immigrants who are paying for the tutoring as they do not know how to tutor children at home what with their limited knowledge due to lack of education yadayadayada.. (breadandbutterfly)"

In fact, this is more or less the polar opposite of my views. My point was that immigrants value education highly but in the case of VR may not have the English skills to tutor their children themselves.

I have no idea why you conflate 'middle class' with 'uneducated' or 'SAHM' or indeed 'white' - I am a working Oxbridge grad. With not a drop of British blood.

Mabe you should try seeing beyond the sterotypes, silibili (appropriate moniker).