Guest blog: to tutor, or not to tutor?

[KateMumsnet]

... that is the question. Parental anxiety about whether or not to tutor seems to be on the rise, with families in grammar school areas feeling increasingly under pressure to pay for private tuition, and parents who favour private education reported to be tutoring their preschoolers. In today's guest post, author and MN blogger Rosie Millard, who writes over at Helicopter Mum, ponders the tutoring dilemma.

Let us know what you think about tutoring - and if you post on the subject, don't forget to leave your URLs on the thread.


"Tutors. They are, without doubt, the secret weapon of the modern day parent. School is not enough these days. When I was growing up nobody had tutors, unless you were rather dim. Now they are quite the opposite. 'Who are yours with?' is the whisper at the school gates.

Some tutors I know in North London have a TWO YEAR waiting list. Parents put their children's names down for tutors when they are in Reception, as if a decent tutor was the same as a place at Eton. Sometimes, of course, the one leads to the other. But not always.

These days, tutors are being used by parents to crowbar their children into top private schools but now the squeeze is really on to get your kid into the ludicrously oversubscribed state selective sector. Ironically this has given the private tutor, who typically comes from a private school, even more status.

My son, tutored for 2 years, took an exam to get into one such state school in North London. He's a bright enough kid. He came 1067th. His friend, who happens to be the England Under-11 Scrabble Champion, came 965th.

Out of my four children, I had two tutored for secondary school entrance. Was it because of peer pressure at the school gates? Absolutely. You do it because everyone else is doing it. You want to do the best for your children, even if you believe in comprehensive education (which I do), and you don't want them to be left behind in an increasingly uneven playing field. If every single child sitting an entrance exam has been tutored up to the eyeballs, God help you if yours hasn't. This was my mindset, at least.

But my children failed to get into all the schools they had been tutored for. Then I talked to some brave friends who resolutely refused to tutor their daughter. She took all the secondary exams for private schools in London. She passed them all and is now at St Paul's. Will she keep up in class? Undoubtedly, because she wasn't tutored to death for the exam. The exams tested her natural intelligence and she passed them.

I don't castigate people who do use tutors. I just think they are probably not worth the money. I think I would write this even if my experience had been successful. Our tutor was a lovely man and took a lot of care to make sure my children were familiar with exam technique. But what I was paying for, essentially, was a quiet two hour period for my child to go over past papers, again and again. Was this something I could have done myself? Undoubtedly. Would my children have taken it as seriously? Probably not - but there are other techniques, including workbooks at the library. Bribery is also a good wheeze, as I have found out with music practise.

How did my children eventually fare? They both got places in excellent London state secondaries via their musical abilities. Furthermore, one school has a sibling policy, which is manna from heaven for anyone with four children. Yes, I pay someone to give them private music lessons. To some, this might be as pernicious as maths tuition. If you are 10 years old and Grade 5 on the piano when you apply for a Music Scholarship, you stand a pretty good chance of being accepted. Only it's not quite the same. Learning the piano, or violin, is a life long skill, and an entrance ticket to the world of music, whereas cracking through Non Verbal Reasoning is simply a means to a place at a decent school.

To tutor, or not to tutor? To be a helicopter mother, or to let children find their own way? In the end, we all just try our best and hope that via an unholy muddle of encouragement, bedtime reading, clean clothes and the odd trip to a museum, our children will get through it all. And they probably will.

Bonnes Vacances, a story of a mad family holiday by Rosie Millard, is out now.

[AntoinetteCosway]

I'm a tutor and I think the value of the lessons is very much dependent on what the tutee and parents want. I had a tutee who just wanted me to help her with her school homework. Her mum was happy with this and every time I offered to do exam technique/work beyond the curriculum they politely refused. Essentially they were paying me to sit with her and make sure she did her homework twice a week!

Most of my other tutees come with totally different needs and get a lot out of it. I really enjoy tutoring-more so than classroom teaching, because you see such quick results and the children really grow in confidence and self-esteem. I've had whole classes who got A*s but my most proud moment was helping a boy with aspergers go from a predicted G at GCSE to a C grade. I cried when I found out his grade!