does your child have extra tuition in maths or english

[southeastastra]

like Kumon or Explore learning? is it worth it?

my ds(8) is catching up with his maths at school yet everyone else's child (even if they're not struggling) seems to go for this extra tuition.

what do you think of it?

We are currently doing a free trial at Kumon.

DD is 7y an din Y3. She is fine at Maths and achieves as expected at school. however she lacks confidence in her ability to do Matjs, esp mental maths.

However after the first week I remain unconvinced. It seems like the tuition at the sessions is very basic and basically the child just goes in a room with other children and thy all do individual worksheet booklets and then a tutor marks it and feedback VERY briefly and they do corrections. Then they get a worksheet booklet sent home to do every night - so 6 booklets a week. They are expected to spend 10 mins a day. The parent marks the work. The tutors also appear to be unqualified in terms of teaching experience/qualifications, and some looked more like sixth formers or students to me.

But the work Dd wassent back with was SO easy. I am sure it is preschool level and nothing like her true level. Just ridiculous really and even she is Can't see how doing work that she knows is aimed at a little child is going to help confidence. What is the point if she can do the booklet in less than 2 mns rather than 10?

I reckon for £50 a month I could just do Maths booklets aimed at her own age range with her every night or so and get the same results.

thanks Hula i am a little confused as to how these extra sessions are run. if they are just worksheets i can download them off the net!

our local explore learning costs £98 per month, it seems so much if they aren't even given one to one

No. I am against tuition in most circumstances and think most of the companies are just money-making machines and don't actually give a damn about the needs of/academic acheivement of/progress of the individual child.

i tend to think that janeite. i have asked ds's teacher and she said he didn't need any extra help. he is below average in maths but he is catching up now!

other parents here are all kind of gloating about sending their children to explore learning. i cannot see how it can justify nearly £100 per month.

i trust his teacher - can't see why others don't. makes me feel like i should be doing something extra but what.

My dd goes to Kip McGrath for maths, it's £25 for an 80 minute session. She has always struggled with maths even though the teachers kept saying oh she'll catch up etc. It got to P7 and I decided I'd had enough and enroled her for extra tuition. They have said at Kip mcGrath that she is really far behind yet the school kept saying she was fine.

Dd enjoys going to the class and I feel it has improved her confidence immensly as it's a small class plus her maths is improving. Her teachers are very good and they will help her with any maths homework that she gets and is not sure of which is a great help.

what is P7?

I've just started using Whizz.com for my ds year 2 - who lacks confidence in Maths. He's really enthusiastic about it and I usually have to peel him off the computer.
Am paying £14.99/month rather than £100/year because I'm expecting the novelty to wear off within a few months, hopefully in that time his confidence will have improved.

No, but after helping ds(8) with his homework tonight I think he might need it.
He has the attention span of a gnat and my cat would be more enthusiastic if I gave her a pencil.

My now 10 yr old started Kumon in year 2 because she lacked confidence in maths. However Kumon was not the right thing for her. Kumon offers no one to one help and we could only speak to the tutor every other week!
so we stopped that and started something called Magikats. She went weekly for an hour in a class of 6 taught by a primary school teacher. They worked on topics she was doing at school but in a smaller class she was able to work at her pace.She was given 5 sheets/tasks to complete at home (like times tables or number bond work) which took her 5- 10 mins to do.
She is year 6 now and is working at NC level 5 -she is not in the top group for maths but she has much more confidence in her ability to do maths.
She just needed a bit of tlc and nuturing which in a state school isn't always available for the middle of the class kids so a small group tutor sewssion was right for us

Hi wed99 - I've just joined MumsNet and was browsing posts about tutors etc. I realise this is an old thread, but I'm hoping you'll help. I've heard of Kumon but it does not seem a good programme to me. It sounds like MagiKats was a good option - was it expensive? I can't see one in my area, but there is one about 40minutes away.

Thanks.

We use whizz
School says dc don't need it but once they started I found there were lots of gaps

Cost of Magikats is £60 per subject per calendar month. Look at their website www.magikats.co.uk.

My DS is aged 15 and is very good at maths. He has recently been 'tutoring' my friend's DS (Y6), as the volunteering part of his Duke of Edinbugh award. I think this is a great way forward, especially when money is tight.

If you can afford it, 1:1 tutoring, tailored to your child, is the way to go.

DS (11 - at a state primary, going on to a state secondary) has had a tutor for maths since about March when we realised that he was not performing to his potential. She is an independent tutor and has been fantastic at increasing his focus, accuracy, independence and confidence.

I disagree entirely - if you want to help a young child, go onto amazon and order some Bond maths workbooks. They are fab!

I think one to one tuitions help address specific problem areas. Whereas things like repetitive sheets should be begun BEFORE the problem even begins. If you notice a specific gap, by then it's too late to address this by worksheets off Internet too.

£98 per month??

Sweet Jesus.

I don't like Kumon, its seems pretty repetitive learning by rote exercise taking but I guess what it does is make them put in the time with test after test - but they can do that anyway without Kumon.

DS is very good at maths because he consistently does from 2 -4 hrs extra maths over a week at home, involving a combination of Bond 10 min / 50 min exercises, and we methodically covered So you Really Want to Learn Maths by Galore Park (he started with Junior Book 2 and 3 in Year 3/4 and is now doing So You really want to Learn Maths Book 1 (meant for yr 6 i think, he will soon start year 5 having covered most of it and when finished we will go through it again) so he is ahead).

We also added variety by using online maths (he's tried everything from Carol Vorderman (seemed very good for a while but novelty of winning online marbles wore off for him after a few weeks) to Maths Whizz, to Bond Online 11 plus (harder than I expected). I encourage him to do the more wordy problems also where you really have to think things through. The bond books are very very good and you can leave them to it to do a timed exercise, but you do need to spend the time going through any weak areas with them, so if you lack the patience or the time, a tutor one hour a week or a small out of school maths class is a good idea.

I should add the four hours a week is only managed during the holidays which for indy schools are long!