Tutoring very young children

[Spiceup]

My local FB quite often has requests for tutors for children in yrs1-4 (and older, but I'm writing about the little ones).

No one ever says "don't be ridiculous, you don't need it, let them enjoy being a child", there are always plenty of recommendations and people offering to do the work.

Is it really necessary or beneficial to tutor such young children? What do schools/teachers make of it?

It depends on the reason for the tutoring. My friend’s daughter has a tutor for maths outside school as she has dyscalculia and can struggle in maths lessons at schools. I see no issue with that at all.

Tutoring a four year old to try and get a place at a “top” academic independent school is quite frankly ridiculous and indicative of wealthy tiger parents.

I can understand using a tutor if a child is struggling with something. They might focus better with a tutor plus the parent might not know how to explain it. Half an hour a week done in a fun and supportive way sounds fine to me providing it is for the right reason.

I was however horrified to hear of some yr5s apparently doing 3 hours 11+ prep a night, so I suspect some of them were being tutored younger to get ahead.

There is nothing wrong with teaching young children skills as most preschools and parents do but formal tutoring is ridiculous.

3-4 year olds can only learn typically in circa 10 min bursts. Little and often is how they master new skills so really only parents / nursery/ preschool teaching is effective. Hiring a stranger to come once a week for 30 minutes isn’t going to accomplish very much. It’s just a waste of money.

I've sometimes tutored little ones, but I will only do 20-30 minute sessions and they are very play-based. It can be useful - completely depends on the child. There's a big difference between weighing out sweets and counting them in a pretend shop, to a formal sit-down session. I think that when parents have tutors for their very small children it's often to compensate for not having time to play with them because of work pressures. In that case, it can be a lovely way of ensuring that the wealth of informal learning is passed on to the child.

@SqueakyPeaks I think if parents can’t carve out 20 min a week for play based learning, throwing a tutor at the problem isn’t tackling the issue… I think the former head of St Paul discussed an epidemic of ‘affluent neglect’ amongst certain London parents.

Honestly a few min a day of parent’s own time doing play based learning with your kids is so much more effective in supporting their learning. Also, reading to them everyday and singing songs together. Quality time via enriching shared experiences is what children thrive on.

I actually think many parents who do this are actually very involved and just are in an arms race to get any advantage possible. However, again, a tutor will make very little difference compared to a good preschool and regular parental involvement.

My year 1 and year 3 children have a tutor for an hour a week. Year 3 child is working at a very similar level as my year 1 so she needs extra help to try and close the gap. The youngest goes so my eldest feels more confident and comfortable and she has a thirst for learning so loves it.

We've tried doing work at home so many different ways and it hasn't helped, so we felt we had to get professional help. Now learning at home is back to being fun for everyone, that alone makes it worth the extra expense for us.

I have used a tutor for my KS1 child.

Mainly because of SEND that needed additional support that school wasn't able/willing to provide.

It was fun-based, very positive experience all round - an opportunity to learn without negative comparisons with other kids.

No regrets here.

@LondonGirl83

I mostly agree with you. In an ideal world there would be no unmet needs and no parents who don't play with their children. But the reality is actually, that an interested, nurturing stable adult once a week can make a vast difference. It shouldn't be so, but it is.

I would do this for my DD (Y3) if her current apps (we use Doodle Maths) weren't working for her. She's been very behind and she still struggles a bit but daily practice has done wonders, school are really pleased she's closing the gap. She wouldn't do 10 mins of practice with us but she might with a tutor (I think we'd probably go for two half hours divided into maths and English if we had a tutor).
I wish DS would work with someone like this - he's a whizz at maths but dyspraxic so he writes so little. But he wouldn't work for a tutor either, I know.

@LondonGirl83

There is nothing wrong with teaching young children skills as most preschools and parents do but formal tutoring is ridiculous.

3-4 year olds can only learn typically in circa 10 min bursts. Little and often is how they master new skills so really only parents / nursery/ preschool teaching is effective. Hiring a stranger to come once a week for 30 minutes isn’t going to accomplish very much. It’s just a waste of money.

This

I should say I have no issue per se with tutoring school age children that have a specific need for it.

My comment is really about preschool children as that’s what the OP was asking about. Tutoring for the 4+ in particular was what I was talking about.

As a teacher I’d want parents to facilitate a conversation between the school and the tutor. Some children may benefit from extra work outside school if there are significant gaps, but if the tutor doesn’t know how we’re pacing the curriculum, which schemes we use, what vocabulary we’re using etc it’s not going to help them as much. Most children who have tutors aren’t the ones who need it though! And I’d want the tutor to have significant experience / training of how to teach as well. Having sent my own DC to an 11+ tutor briefly I was really underwhelmed.

Some of the threads on mumsnet strike me as being a bit ridiculous re tutoring. I’ve seen panic re 4 plus assessments and then people saying once their children are into v academic prep schools they still need a tutor. I just can’t fathom it tbh. That situation is v different to a child struggling with maths and wanting a bit of extra support.

We have a tutor for our 4yo, an hour a week in reading and writing DH’s native language. We were and are doing plenty with her the rest of the week, but DH was hitting a brick wall in getting her to progress with her reading. Which may sound bonkers but her English reading, with no tutoring/hothousing, is 3/4 years ahead, so we started to worry. She loves the tutor and lesson.

The OP isn’t asking about pre school age children at three and four years old, she talking about children in KS1 and Lower KS2.

I’ve done tutoring for children in those year groups, sometimes because the children genuinely need the extra support, and occasionally because the parents find it difficult to support their own children’s education for some reason. They don’t have time or the child is reluctant to work for their parent but will do it for a tutor.

It is a shame that a tutor is ever needed for children this young, but the national curriculum is what it is and expectations of children are quite high. It’s understandable that parents want their children to keep up. Ideally every child would be given any extra support they need in school hours, but often there simply isn’t the time or enough adults to provide all the support required.

It would be incredibly unhelpful for anyone to tell someone they don’t know on FB that they shouldn’t be looking for a tutor if they feel they need one.

Yes most kids do need tutors as SATs results can impact what sets kids go into in Secondary. A lot of Secondaries don’t then move kids up if they start to improve. 11+ tutoring which can also start in Year 1-2 is different as it is more test prep - to gain the skills needed to pass kids need to have been doing Kumon type activities from 5 (and extensive reading) as a minimum.

I've tutored children in babygros (not UK). It's like an interactive version of a YouTube learning video. It's good for child esteem to have one to one and they learn classroom skills like listening, answering questions etc. Parent them has an idea of what to say, is part of the learning journey because they're right there. Children at that age are learning faster than we do

@Ozanj

Yes most kids do need tutors as SATs results can impact what sets kids go into in Secondary. A lot of Secondaries don’t then move kids up if they start to improve. 11+ tutoring which can also start in Year 1-2 is different as it is more test prep - to gain the skills needed to pass kids need to have been doing Kumon type activities from 5 (and extensive reading) as a minimum.

I think you move in a very different world to me! I have rarely see anyone ask about tutoring on our (rural Essex village) FB page.

@Ozanj

Yes most kids do need tutors as SATs results can impact what sets kids go into in Secondary. A lot of Secondaries don’t then move kids up if they start to improve. 11+ tutoring which can also start in Year 1-2 is different as it is more test prep - to gain the skills needed to pass kids need to have been doing Kumon type activities from 5 (and extensive reading) as a minimum.

Nonsense. My dd got into a SS grammar with no Kumon and tutoring from 5. No tutor, in fact. It’s just not true that 11+ prep needs to start any earlier than Y5, and I think the notion that it does is harmful. Except to tutors, of course, who get more years of fees if people are convinced that they need to start years before the exam.

On SATs, some secondaries may operate that way. Certainly not all.

Well there’s tutoring and tutoring isn’t there….

For half an hour a week a lovely LSA from another school comes to see my year 2, they play word and number games and dd really enjoys it. She summer born and was struggling a bit. It’s helping fill in some gaps from covid and I’m seeing the difference in school with the progress she’s making.
Schools are pushed, and it’s hard to give all the kids the individual attention they’d benefit from.

I do think though that at 6 years old it should only be half an hour or so. My dd would probably struggle to focus after that especially after school.

These are the children falling apart at private Senior schools. These are the children suffering from mental health issues at the Grammar Schools. They haven't been allowed the freedom to slowly come to learning at their own pace, in a non stressed, playful environment. For a very small percentage this approach works - for most it just stores up issues for later.

Nonsense. My dd got into a SS grammar with no Kumon and tutoring from 5. No tutor, in fact. It’s just not true that 11+ prep needs to start any earlier than Y5, and I think the notion that it does is harmful. Except to tutors, of course, who get more years of fees if people are convinced that they need to start years before the exam

Wrong. The children who learn via Kumon tend to have better accessible memories for numbers and vocabulary and is considered a gentle but effective way of developing this when kids don’t always have parents who are amazing at maths and english (or the resources) to develop their kids skills .

Not everyone has the resources at home to be magically test ready by year 5 and by saying this you basically hammer home inequalities because working class parents then don’t even try to get their kids into grammars.

@Ozanj So these working class families are affording tutoring to go up against the heavily tutored middle classes are they?!!

@Placido

These are the children falling apart at private Senior schools. These are the children suffering from mental health issues at the Grammar Schools. They haven't been allowed the freedom to slowly come to learning at their own pace, in a non stressed, playful environment. For a very small percentage this approach works - for most it just stores up issues for later.

No. Children who are tutored aren’t the ones falling apart or have MH issues at grammars. It’s the kids whose parents think learning should come naturally who suffer because they often have zero to no support at home & are expected to get on with things or the parents have little to no understanding how big an impact failing / changing schools would have on a child’s social life.

A child being tutored is often a sign they are receiving parental support - and most kids with parents who are familiar with how selective schools work do it regardless of how well the child is doing.

@Ozanj
I am sorry you are talking total nonsense. Have a chat to a professional who supports the mental health of these children and you will find that both ends of the spectrum are suffering - those who have expectations put on them by overly ambitious parents and those who have no support at home. There is a middle way, and that is to support and be interested without putting on huge amounts of pressure or over tutoring to get in to a school beyond a child's natural ability. There is a terrible epidemic of mental health in selective schools, and it is down to pressure from the schools and from the parents.