On Radio 2 earlier...tutoring...who pays for it then?

[StevieDunton]

or have i missed the thread on this?

is tutoring an elitest "thing?" are schools doing their job properly etc etc

so, who pays for their chld to have extra tutoring and why?

i do. for dd.y3. because she is not keeping up with the rest of her class by a long way ie can barely read and write, does not understand maths. she has been assessed for SN and found not to have any. i intend to keep it up for the whole of y3 and, if she has made significant progress (which she seems to be doing), let her "go it alone" in y4.

whaddya think?

I heard that debate and basically you cannot and should not stop parents from funding extra tutoring if they feel their children need it.

Also meant to say that many parents 'tutor/help' their kids with their homework, do we somehow stop them too as they are giving their children an unfair advantage?

We do need to help all children do well at school but I don't see how this will be achieved by stopping people paying for tutoring. Not all parents who opt for it come from wealthy backgrounds, many make sacrifices in other areas of their budgets.

we have places round here where if you are on certain benefits you can get roughtly 80% off the cost of tutoring, otherwise it's nearly £100 per month. i don't think that's particularly fair (and i know people will jump on me for that)

i thought it was interesting how someone said that people will complain about the cost of tutoring and say they can't afford it, yet will happily fork out for Wii, playstation etc

not chucking wood on the fire btw, just thought it was an interesting point.

in a similar vein, if your child shows particular talent for a sport, you can end up shelling out £££ for equipemtn, insurance etc...people don't seem to balk at that...

I have paid for tutoring for my child in the past because his teacher and TA focused solely on those children who needed extra support. The more able children were "left to get on with it". Not only was my DS bored, I was concerned that nobody was checking that he really did understand what he was being taught, especially maths. His current teacher is meeting the needs of all her pupils, so DS is not being tutored this year. However, I would have no hesitation in tutoring again if I felt he was being allowed to drift.

at dds tutoring, there seem to be a lot of g&t students, but also a lot of tarquins - see now if dd was older and borderline A-B, the i don't think i would be happy paying for tutoring to yank her up that extra grade BUT if it was borderline C-D, then i would be.

savvy?

is this primary or secondary mussyhillmum?

I have parents evening on Wednesday and am concerned that Ds1 has fallen way behind on his maths.

If he has then I will not think twice about getting him a tutor.

But that is because we could afford it.

Had it been a few years ago when we were skint beyond skint then I would have had to think twice.

well we are not exactly living on bread and water to subsidise dds tutoring. but you do notice £150 every 6 weeks

if she were to take up an expensive kind of sport that cost about that much then i would be putting the kibosh on it PDQ.

but for short term (and i mean until end of school year)then we budget accordingly.

but the point i am trying to make is that paying £xxx and struggling to pay it to make an average kid slightly above average is, IMO, pointless and a waste of money.

As cat64 said - many parents get tutors for 11 plus - it's a whole industry here in Bucks.

I've also noticed that in my (for some reason v pushy) DD2's (age 6) class a lot of parents were getting eg Kumon maths etc. i've resisted (I'm too mean for starters) and in fact one or two have told me that they are giving it up because they don't think it's worth it. Feel rather relieved as inevitably when some parents start doing it there is a kind of golly I ought to feeling that creeps round. But unless there is a specific problem then I think at that age it gets ridiculous.

My dd1 goes to a Kip McGrath maths class, she's been going since last summer and will go until I either can't afford it anymore or she is up to the level that she is supposed to be at,at this rate it maybe the former reason. All through primary school her teachers would assure me that she was doing fine with her maths, we had no need to worry,yes she was understanding what she was doing etc and foolishly I believed them.

Sadly it turns out they were all talking nonsense, dd was struggling, in a big way and didn't make it to the level she was suposed to be on. She is now very far behind where she should be and I will happily pay for extra lessons to help her. I'll admit though I grudge the fact that I have to pay because it's the job of the school teachers to teach my child and they have failed at it. However my dd needs to be able to do maths and if I haveto pay extra then so be it.

DS is still at primary. I didn't tutor him to push him or give him sort of "advantage". He was tutored because he was being left to get on with it and he was beginning to lose confidence with his maths.

You cannot stop parents paying for tutoring, I don't see how you could. And if you did, then you ought to stop private schools, and any other perceived advantage that parents can give their kids through money or status...

My kids are young but I would not hesitate tutoring them if I felt it was needed. Also, as I posted elsewhere, having a number of children plus working I will never be able to input as much as some other parents, so I will probably get a tutor to help anyway!!

If the child is enjoying it then I would see tutoring as one of the best ways to spend money.

I certainly pay for music lessons for my DCs, and sports coaching.I pay regulary for courses for myself to extend my own education.

Monet spent on education can never be wated or wasteful can it?

And as for the advantage argument well yadda yadda. This morning I taught my DCs how to conjugate their latin verbs. Waddya gonna do, sue me for helping my kids?

I have not, will not and would not pay for a tutor for my dd and we live close to grammar areas which we may be in by the time she moves up.

However I hold my hand up to the fact that I am a teacher and as a parent will help her learn.

Is tutoring usually just for maths?

I accidentaly had some tutoring whilst doing my A levels. Literally, I was in a RTA and in hospital for weeks so was with home and hospital tutors for most of a term, did wonders for my English language grade as someone took the time to teach me HOW to do the things ( such as précis and comprehension) we were expected to do.

Would I pay for tutoring for my child? maybe, if he would benefit from learning how to do something that school and DH or I are not mamageing to teach him.
DH tutored other students on his course through his 1st degree and then undergrads while on his 2nd degree. Then tutored me when my maths needed a brush up for some training I did, hes good at making maths understandable.

I paid for tutoring for my DD in year 6 as she had lost all confidence with maths.I feel it was money well spent as she gained lots of confidence in the basics ready for secondary school. I could have helped her but she would not sit down and listen to me in the way she would to someone else! She is doing well now in maths.
This year[year 9] I have paid for some tutoring in English [alternate weeks] because she felt she wasn't learning anything at school. Her teacher was off sick almost all of last year and this year the teacher can't control the class.She is predicted to do well at GCSE but loves her extra lessons so much we'll carry on with them.
I look at it that it is much cheaper than private school and plenty of people pay for that. If you can afford it why not? It's no different to paying for music lessons/sports coaching etc.
I wouldn't insist that my DD was tutored though. If she wasn't happy we would stop.