Tutoring during primary school

[Agadoodoo]

Currently looking at primary schools for our 3yo. She seems quite bright and we'd like her to have the chance to reach her potential and possibly get to a grammar for secondary (obvs we'd reassess closer to the time). Our local school is a lovely community school with lots of extra curricular stuff going on and good pastoral care. The SATs results are pretty crap though, at least partly because it's quite a transient population with lots of children who have English as an additional language, and also because they value welfare over exam results which is no bad thing of course. I don't think they have much capacity for stretching more able children though.

Anyway, one option would be to send her there and try to plug gaps/do stretching work with a tutor.

Other option would be to try our luck getting in to one of the "posher" schools slightly further away (20 mins walk in a direction unhelpful for commuting, which is quiet a big deal for London). They are really great schools both pastorally and academically, but it would mean that she didn't have many friends in the immediate area and play dates might be tricky (we don't have a car). She's an only child so the social side is important for her.

Back to the question: can tutoring really make up for going to a less academic school?

Thanks! And sorry for wittering - late night with DD and my brain is not fully in gear 🙃

We were in a similar position – our DD seemed advanced aged 3-4, particularly in speech and reading, and we had to choose between the school up the road and ‘better’ schools slightly further away.

We went with the local option. This school didn’t have a transient population and results were average, so the teachers had less of challenge with accommodate a broad range than at your local school, but we worried that it wouldn’t be academic enough for DD.

It was fine. Some years were better than others, depending on the teacher, and there were times when DD was bored, but overall, it was a lovely experience.

In my view, the most important thing is to make sure you keep up with reading with your DD pretty much throughout primary: don’t stop when she’s fluent, but introduce more challenging books, talk about the vocab and what happens next etc. Do interesting things at weekends and in the holidays, talk about science and current affairs etc. and she will build the life knowledge that makes the schoolwork more relevant.

DD got high (maximum or nearly maximum) scores in both sets of SATs with no extra work at home, and easily got into the grammar of her choice with home support (workbooks and a couple of mock tests) but no external tutoring. As long as the school is ‘ok’, the parental enrichment/support is there and the child is naturally bright and keen, it should be fine, and there is a lot to be said for local friends and a stress-free commute for seven years.

"Can tutoring really make up for going to a less academic school?" => Yes
However from the experience, if the children are around the kids with similar backgrounds/parents/level, they would enjoy a lot more.