Son distressed with idea of tutoring

[SwanValleyuser77]

I would value some advice about my son. He is in year 4 and I mentioned we were planning to get him some tutoring for the 11 plus next year and he became very distressed, tearful and wants to move out! If I give the background:

We live in Bucks which is a fully 11 plus area. The state option is either a grammar school (which about 1/4 state school kids get into but this varies hugely as to whether the primary school is in a "posh" area and kids get private tutoring). At my son's school which is in a large village and considered a good school roughly 1/4 pass the 11 plus each year depending on the cohort. I had wondered if my son may be better suited to what Bucks call "upper" schools rather than the pressue of a grammar school as he does care about doing well but tends to get there "his own way" and doesn't like the pressure coming from outeside. For info the "Upper" schools are where the kids who fail the 11 plus go to, like a secondary modern basically.

However what has thwarted my plan to let him probably fail the 11 plus and not get tutoring is our local upper school seems to be faiing. The school is in an affluent area yet only gets around 35% of year 11 students getting a "strong pass" for English and Maths at GCSC and it's Progress 8 school is terrible, it used to have a good reputation. Once I saw the most recent stats for year 11 I thought "I need a tutor to increase his options" so he could go to a grammar school potentially.

There are other good local upper schools but we don't live near enough to get in based on last year's stats, we can't afford private and there are no local boys options for private eiether at secondary.

My son seems bright in terms of reading, I don't know his current reading age but it was around 10 years near the start of year 2 when he turned 7. He is good at spelling and comprehension too and knows lots of facts and has read most of the Michael Morpegio books off his own back. But he isn't very keen on times tables, and "hates" maths but is in a maths group that is half way up the top class of 2 classes in maths (so maybe almost the top third of 60 kids).

So I feel terrible for upsetting him so much, he says he wants to go to the upper school with his friends, but some may pass....but there are 2-3 grammar schools that the kids go to so it feels like a minefield. I hate the 11 plus system, I've hated it for many years but work and family ties mean we still live in Bucks still.

What do I do? Has anyone had a child similar to this and not done tutoring or ploughed on and done it?

We live in a super-selective grammar area, the primaries don't help towards the 11 plus at all but they do CAT tests at the start of year 5 which are a good indication of whether they would get into a grammar or not tbh. Ask the school if they do this.

DD wanted to do the exam but we didn't do any tutoring. I didn't think her chances of passing were good and she does not respond well to pressure so I said she could do the exam if she wanted and practice at home.

Most children did have tutoring, not all who did passed. You could look at it as giving them the best chance possible, for me (thinking about my own DD) it would have been extra pressure to pass and more disappointment at the end. It does depend on the child.

My DD's school usually gets a fair proportion of their pupils into the grammars and did again. Have you been round the catchment school?

Good suggestion to look around the failing? upper school, I was planning to go later this year if there is an open day, otherwise the next one is Sept next year when he will be in year 5. I think looking around may help.
They sit the 11 plus in Sept of year 6 so the CAT schools sound good but are too late in eyar 5 it soudns like to help.

A great bit of advice I got recently.
For some reason we see tutoring as a negative that is trying to fix a deficit, however we never see a sports coach in that way. We see a coach as someone developing a talent.
Would it help to reframe the discussion with you son in this way?

The CAT test in year 5 is a year before the 11+ and the school will (or would in our case) let you know if they thought your child would do well at grammar. If your child is going in to Y5 in Sept 2019 they may do it then, might be worth checking.

Are any other parents thinking of a tutor? Being tutored in a small group might be just as helpful as 1:1 but feel very different to your DC.

What’s his interest? Get into the maths that way.

Football? Video games?

Look round the grammar. He’s old enough to have an opinion and fonrthjng there might click with him - great drama group... Amazing library... Tip: go with one of his mates.

fonrthjng = something 😀

I’m a Governor of a Bucks Primary and we don’t do CAT.

If you hate living in Bucks, no adjacent county is far away! Or move to where you do like the secondary option. You just cannot moan about schools and the system and sit around. My DD 2 didn’t sit the 11 plus. You can opt out.

Also any school that’s currently not great will have put a lot of effort in to improve by the time your DS gets there. However some schools have never been great so Improvement can be temporary. Others have dips and then improve and stay ok.

If you tutor, and he hates it, you will have an unhappy child. My friend had her DD tutored for 2 years and she still only scored 103. Be careful about pushing him too far and spoiling his self esteem. Many Bucks secondaries are great. Move if you need to.

I was going to say that I know the school but the one I’m thinking of (and I’ve checked the data) is well above average in progress and has 39% English and Maths good passes. It is RI and the Head has been imported from another Bucks Secondary. (Although that got into RI twice under her Headship). As few Bucks schools are RI in “affluent” areas, this must be the one! SWRS by any chance!?

You also have another secondary nearby in a village that’s doing better but, I can absolutely assure you, that these results are very cohort dependent. Your school may well lose children to the village secondary school nearby. The two areas actually are joined. Years ago they lost pupils to another school that was regarded as better and that’s only a couple of miles away as well. I notice there are some favoured schools that are less than 40% now the bar has been raided to a 5 as a good pass. Nearly every secondary has reduced percentages and so do the Grammars!

Affluent areas in Bucks have plenty of people going private sonthis skews the numbers passing. You can never look at a cohort in a primary and compare them with those who have gone before. My DDs year had 45% to Grammar and the year above was 15%. The following year was 20%.

You won’t normally get to look around a Grammar in y4. There’s no point. Your DS will know pretty quickly what the differences are. It can make it even worse if you call it failing too. Why can’t you just leave him be and find another solution. You really would t have to go far and you’ve got over a year to do it.

We hoped to have DS tutored from Y4, but we could not find a highly recommended tutor (no one here goes for 11+), so we tutored him ourselves.

Children change. In Y4 DS wanted to go to the same secondary school as his friends, but we are not in catchment. (Despite it being closest to us.) At the beginning of Y6 we had a look at the best schools around (again) and he chose a (relatively) far away highly academic small state school and took the entrance test for grammar school as well. None of his friends applied to either.
It is about giving them options.

All the best to your DS @SwanValleyuser77

Thank you for posting. Actually it's not Sir William Ramsey, our local upper is in the Chiltern D/C area but is similar to Sir William Ramsey in that it has gone up and down over the years. We do just have the one catchement upper school but I have reflected on it and suspect they probably will be able to improve again. I think I'll put the deposit down for the tutoring which starts in year 5 and then decide nearer the time what to do, it's a bit committment and I'm not sure my heart is in it and my son's heart seems not to be either! Someone local coming to the house would be ideal but in Bucks the tutoring market seems to be in groups of around 10, but at least they produce course material so you feel they know the curriculum required. One local tutpring provider charges around £3000 for the year for this for a large group of children (we certainly aren't going with that one!). I have thought of moving but I also help out elderly relatives who are local and moving would pile on stress there if I were further away. We are in the centre of Bucs it feels like and there are no secondary schols outside Bucks that would ever have us! I did know by choosing to move nearer them some years ago that our family would face challenges with the 11 plus, but I was hopefully at one time about a plan for a new secondary free school but this failed to get off the ground

As I used to work in this area, I am finding it difficult to understand which school you are talking about in Chiltern. There is only one RI school in this area but the Grade 5 and above is 40%. Yes, its a very affluent area but that means there are so many going to private schools the school is not reflective of the whole area. Never has been, by the way. If it is the school I now think it is, it is a yo yo school and I would be struggling to think of a time when it was good. Every other school in Chiltern is Good or Outstanding.

Chiltern is not the centre of Bucks. It takes no time at all to travel from an area with good schools. It will come down to what means more. Your DS, relatives and your time. Moving to HG, or catchment for Chalfonts, I would have thought, would not be a big deal. You would need to stay at your current school though because many primaries are full. When you move to Bucks, knowing the ins and outs of secondary moderns is key but several never seem to be able to raie their game.

There was never a need for a free school because there is not huge pressure on secondary school places. I remember the talk about it and there was a large article in my local village magazine but I could not see where the children were coming from.

£3000 is outrageous. I do feel for you but you are not unusual to be in this position.

My summer born boy would not have responded well to tutoring: the pressure and length of days would have been beyond him in Yr4 in any productive way.

He went to a comp (a proper comp, not a grammar area ‘comp’), matured huge amounts in Yr 7 and us now on course for A* A levels.

Is your son young in his year?

My son isn't young in the year, but would still find the tutoring tiring I think. it's more typical for the tutoring to cost about £1500 for year 5 I think, no wonder so few kids on free school meals pass the 11 plus!

Bubbles Buddy - I feel bad about naming the school as it would show up in internet searches but if you know the area you will have heard of it. Over the years it has had a reasonable rep but was "requires improvement" about 8 years ago....it isn't currently but with a Progress 8 of -0.28 and 35% at grade C and above in English/Maths I wonder if it may be heading that way but hopefully not. It may be they had a weak cohort last year or had losts of students who couldn't quite get a "high C" with the new system?

I will pm you.

The tutor you choose in this situation is very important.
They need to have a good rapport with your son and 'be on his side' .
They need to start gently with plenty of encouragement, take a few minutes to chat about his hobbies and interests etc
If you can find the right person he may almost enjoy it!

You don't need a tutor, just buy the books and do it yourself and then you can vary the frequency and the timing depending on how your son feels. You can also concentrate on thing she finds more difficult.
There are so many resources out there to help you.

We did exactly that in Bucks and DS did well, didn't get stressed and we spent considerably less time on it than his tutored friends. I did have to teach myself some of the grammatical concepts though as I'd never learnt much grammar at my comp in the 80's!

With the extent of his reaction, I would wonder what he has heard / what has been said to him, about tutoring. I could just imagine my children getting completley the wrong idea at that age, and if something has been said in the playground etc that is a little bit nasty, or even merely something a teacher has said "I hope you won't all be put through extra tutoring next year" - that could contribute to a child feeling that they must avoid tutoring at all costs. See if you can sensitively explore the idea with him at some point, work out what is really bothering him about it.

Hopefully the answer to that, if you find it, will guide your next moves.

@Pythonesqe You are so right. My DS initially thought tutoring is a sign of failure. We had to explain to him that it is extra, things they do not cover in class. Later he was ever so proud when the teacher spotted that we covered certain topics at home already.

Bucks primary schools pay virtually no attention to the 11 plus. They don’t teach for it, talk about it or pass comments to children about it in y4. Pressures come exclusively from parents. These transmit to children. In Bucks it’s worse than Sats. Years ago no one remotely cared about Sats. The grammar school place was the prize. Therefore children get rattled very early when peers start tutoring. I knew some who started at 5. I did Susan Doughtrey and 1 week of paid for exam technique for DD1. It’s more complex now due to changes in the tests but if children don’t take well to tutoring it’s such an expensive mistake! It’s never really fun when the stakes are high and children know parents are investing in them. It’s worse when they don’t make 121. They feel like total failures.

I never understand why more parents just accept DC are not going to get 121 or anywhere near it. Why go through all of this just to end up where they would have been in the first place, ie the secondary modern?

I’m not saying OPs DC won’t get 121 but far too many parents plough on and it’s stressful and pointless. Many DC know they are not the brightest in the class and are more realistic than many parents!

Refreshingly quite a few families now opt out of the 11 plus, in Bucks, looking at the council info tables this seems to be happening in the leafy middle class areas much more than the urban low income areas

That’s because no one thinks you can opt out and parents haven’t thought about what they could do. Also parents believe it’s their DCs right to take the exams. I know parents who didn’t even choose a grammar on the preference form but whose children still took the test! It’s bizarre!