has anyone used a home tutor to stimulate a bright child that is bored or not being stretched at school?

[elibelly]

My DD is in year 2 at the local state primary school. She is bright but also lazy and tends to do nothing if she's not being engaged or stretched by the work she's given at school.

She was very happy in reception and year 1 and over-achieved in both years, ditto the first term of year 2. However, her teacher from last term left the school and she now has a new teacher. The work has taken a backwards turn it seems, particularly in literacy. She is bored by the guided reading books and has become turned off from learning, she has been chatting in class rather than paying attention and has become lazy in her work. The teacher was very unreceptive & defensive when I tried to discuss this with her and said that DD should find the books interesting because they are (no they're not) and was I suggesting that she (the teacher) sing and dance on the carpet to keep DD's attention. Needless to say I was not too impressed by this. I have been spending a lot of time with my daughter looking at her work and trying to get her to get the best out of it, but my attempts are only helping with her homework and not her classwork.

Much as I would love to pluck her out of that school and send her to a very nice private school nearby, we can't afford it. So I was wondering if a private tutor might be an effective compromise, this might give her some 1 to 1 attention, and boost her confidence and interest in learning, and possibly give her the right tools to deal with her current situation at school.

Has anyone had a similar experience? Any thoughts or advice would be welcome.

the only person i know with this problem took her child out of school and now home educates very happily.
even if this is not an option for you, you may want to post on the home ed thread and see if anyone there has any ideas on what to do, how to work with your child - they do do it every day after all.
good luck

I have been in this position with dd1.

I would suggest you approach the head or deputy if you're not happy with class teacher's approach (defensive is not uncommon ime).

If you get no joy there, then you may want to look at moving schools (some are more interesting and better able to think creatively than others). Failing that, you may need to develop a whole raft of strategies at home to keep her engaged. This is hard work but can also be fantastic fun.

The principal issue with children finding the work too easy is that they will not learn how to develop crucial skills like perseverance, or how to cope with other people being better than them, or even how to cope with tasks that they can't immediately master to perfection. This is a real issue, no matter how snippy people may get about it on here. We also had behavioural issues similar to the ones you describe.

We used a whole range of extra stuff for dd1, and did in the end have a tutor for her, but not until Y4. She is now blissfully happy and doing very well at secondary school, but I realise that's a long way away when you're in Y2.

If you want to CAT me, I'm happy to talk offboard.

Thanks to both of you, especially frogs, that's been very helpful. I may be in touch frogs if I think of some useful questions for you, thanks for the CAT offer

If you do an IQ-type test, my DD comes out as very bright but, like yours, she is lazy. I also spent ?a lot of time with my daughter looking at her work and trying to get her to get the best?. I kept thinking that the school were letting her down.

I now realise, very late in the day, that she is never going to change. She is lazy. No amount of example from her parents or nagging is going to make any difference. I sometimes wonder if I made it worse ? where?s the incentive to make an effort when you know that mum will be shouldering hte burden for you?

She didn?t get her predicted grades at GCSE but she did OK. If she wants to come across in exams as merely above-average instead of bright, then it?s her decision: it?s her life, not mine. The drive needs to come from the child, not the parent.