What proportion of children at your school get tutoring?

[Ladymuck]

We have a few good localish state schools which get very good results (over half the children attain Level 5 by Year 6).

The headteacher of one of the schools has told my friend (with a dd in Yr 3) that one third of all the pupils there (and at the other local schools) are tutored in at least one, if not more, subjects, from Year 3 onwards, with the numbers steadily increasing up the school. This information was given in response to a concern that her dds weren't progressing to the best of their ability and she couldn't see where they would "catch up".

I guess that I concluded that at least some children would be getting tutored in Years 5 & 6 (the neighbouring borough has 11+) but have to say that I'm shocked at the proportion (and the implication that if you wanted your child to do well then this is what you had to do). I was aware when looking round one of the other schools that again a third of the pupils were being tutored in Year 5 & 6 (again the head was upfront about this at the open day) but I hadn't realised how young this started - I had assumed that it was more about exam practice rather than actually teaching them fractions etc.

The schools are in a relatively middle class area so we're talking about parents who can afford it on the whole, but how normal is this? Or is it just one of the facets of a London education these days?

Re-reading the message - I should point out that my friend knew that other children were being tutored - she was just flabberghasted at effectively being told by the head that this is what she should do for her dd.

I'm not in a terribly upmarket area. I know of one parent who is considering tutoring for her child in Year 4, but that's it. I wonder whether part of the reason for the boom in tutoring is less to do with current concerns about the education system than about standards in the Seventies and Eighties when many of today's parents didn't learn fractions etc. properly themselves so can't help their children.

I'm shocked by your friend's headteacher's comments - by both the implication that good parents ought to be paying for tutoring for their children and the fact she claimed to know how many children were being tutored. Is she getting a cut, I wonder?

btw, my DS1 is at one of the grammar schools in the borough I think you're talking about (if I've remembered rightly where you are) and he didn't have tutoring.

Outrageous!

I doubt the head is taking a cut, but i guess that the league table position is of interest. I guess I have nothing against parents who want their child tutored, but it feels a bit odd that these schools are known for their results but in fact most of the children who get Level 5 are tutored. And it does all seem rather self-prepetuating if the headteachers are , in effect promoting it.

Hallgerda - it is the Sutton grammars that I'm thinking of, though depending on where people live they may opt for Bromley instead (no surprise that Croydon secondary schools lose the cream when the 2 neighbouring boroughs still have selective schools, hmm). I know that Sutton in particular make the point that tutoring isn't needed for their exams - presumably the exams cover a reduced curriculum but the questions are designed to test the depth of understanding of that curriculum.

Aha, LadyMuck - I thought it was Sutton you were talking about

The dcs are young, but it is likely that that is where we will look if we're still here. Interesting that Wilson's had better A level results than Whitgift!

We're in Cheshire, not London, but I would say that at least 50% of the children have had 12 months or more tuition by the time they reach end of yr 6.

I don't know about the school as a whole but about a quarter of kids in my dc class get private tutoring in one subject or another.

My dh always had a tutor as a child and he wants us to get one for our kids but not yet for year 2 and 3 but later in subjects like maths which I can't help with or if they are doing a language that one of us can't speak.

I thought that Cheshire might be similar. I know SATS are questionable but it does feel almost fraudulent for league tables to be published which don't represent the school's effort. But I guess no performance measure will be perfect.

I had been thinking that at least if we decided to pull the dcs out of private school there were a selection of good state schools. I see that I might have to bag the tutor first!

Not sure as a whole school thing, but in dd's class (Y5) of 24 kids 4 have a tutor. The 2 girls started with their's in y3, the boys in y4. The girls are both middling in the class, but have much brighter older siblings who got into private secondary schools. They are being tutored to help them get into the same school. One of the boys is aiming to get into a very popular private school and needs some extra help to achieve it but still may not. The other boy is dead bright, not too sure why he's being tutored
Dd isn't having one. She's doing really well without, good in all areas and a nice rounded individual [proud emoticon]

We are in a "trendy" London borough with a poor educational reputation BTW, but dd's school is just on the up and up.

Hi Ladymuck, I am in North London and quite a few tutor at our school in Yr 5 if they want to try for grammer schools.
Then there are the parents like me who tutor their children who have learning difficulties and do not get enough help at school to keep up with everyone else

There is no selective secondary education around here. I don't know of any children who are tutored during primary school, and would be extremely surprised if there are any.

I do know of the odd one or two at secondary level who have some private tutoring at age 15-16.

when ds ws in year four, the teachers told us to get him a tutor.
in yer five they recommended one to us when i stopped sending him to the one sil recommended as i thought she ws putting too muchpressure on him.
ds2 is in yer one. kids in his clss have been tutored since the beginning ot reception.

Seemed to be that it was children across the entire ability range who were being tutored, so not just for selective exams. Mind you I know private school parents who opt for kumon or tutoring.

Well one of my son's friends who is five years old has just started Kumon Maths.

It seems a bit young for me

Please can someone recommend a tutor to prepare for the exam for grammar schools in Gloucestershire? I would like my daughter to apply for Pates. Thank you.

Can't speak for the whole school, but in DS1's YR1 class, 30% are getting tutored. Some of those children are also getting Kumoned in addition. The percentage doing Kumon is larger than 30%. It is a private pre-prep where parents are anxious about selective prep exams in Year 2.

I spoke with a teacher regarding the tutoring (just didn't get it) and asked if the children getting tutored needed it to pass the 7+ and according to him, they didn't need it to pass the exam, more to fine tune exam performance. When parents hear that other people are tutoring, they being then to consider tutoring themselves. Madness.

frances5, there is a Nursery parent who started Kumon for their son in September !

I had my son tutored by a specialist dyslexia tutor from ages 7 to 11 as the school didn't put much in place. I didn't feel that he had time to wait around until they did.

He now attributes his current success to having that tutor as much to give him confidence as anything else.

I would estimate 75% of year 5 and 6's are tutored at ds's school. Many go to private if they don't get into grammar, although the local girls comp gets a fair percentage- not so the boys.
We live in an area with many Koreans/Sri Lankans, who are tutored from a very early age for the grammars- and tend to be the ones who get in.

0% to 1%, at a guess. Working cklass area.

LadyMuck - Do your friends children attend my DC's school? My DCs attend an "outstanding" state school in an affleunt middle-class area. Many children from year 3 onwards are tutored. The head is very upfront that parents need to either pay for a tutor or tutor themselves as there is not enough time to teach timestables, telling time,etc. This is not tutoring for exams; it is tutoring to ensure the curriculum is covered!

My DS aged 9 yr 4 goes to a tutor for literacy once a week - why because when he was in yr 2 there was so much emphasis on preparing for SATS that as he was a middle abilty child and well behaved in class he was overlooked - we didn;t realise at the time . But we did see through yr 2 a decraese in his confidence and now realise what it was all about.

Going to the tutor has now increased his confidnece and is now much happier - if he is happy he will learn .

And that school he was in in yr 2 was an 'outstanding' .

My DD also attends an 'outstanding' local primary school that feeds mainly into the GS system in a fairly affluent area.

I would say that at least 50% of kids get tutoring in some subjects from Year 5 onwards, and about 25% start in Year 3. The majority of this tutoring is done with the 11+ in mind.

We chose this school for our DD because we felt it provided a good 'all-round' education and pastoral care, with lots of after-school clubs and activities beyond the classroom - things that I think make a school.

However, I know a lot of people send their DCs to this school because they see the results in the league tables and think it is some kind of 'ticket' to passing the 11+. They are then in for a shock, because those high GS pass rates pretty much all come down to private tutoring...

I'm anti-tutoring if it means putting kids under pressure to pass exams, but I don't think all tutoring is a bad thing: my own DD currently gets tutoring in maths once a week simply because her confidence was knocked by being put in the 'lower set' two years ago and it gives her the opportunity to ask questions that she wouldn't have the confidence to in a class of 32 kids.

However, I don't recall kids being privately tutored to this extent when I was growing up - I am in my late 30s - so I wonder whether the increase in tutoring is the result of more mothers working (of which I am one, so I'm not judging anyone here!) and having less time to give homework support than our own mothers did?