How much tutoring for 9+/11+ is going on??

[nat73]

DCs attend an 'average' village school which is cosy but not very academic. DC1 is in Year 3 and one of the top 3 pupils of a year group of 16.
Homework consists of reading regularly (which about 50% of the parents do) and 6 spellings per week.
We both went to academic private schools and would like her to move to the private sector at age 9 or 11. We cannot afford to pay for prep school as well as secondary school.
We pay board games with her and do some maths and spellings at the weekends but not very structured.

DH wants to get 2 hours tutoring for her per week starting now (Year 3) to prepare her to swop to private in 1 to 3 years time. She is not 'behind' in the state system she is either on or above target for her age. I am thinking this is over the top and we can do 1 hour a week with a year to go?

How much tutoring are people doing? We are fish out of water at our school as most parents are very laid back (my husband was criticised by another parent (a teacher) at the swimming pool for asking DC1 about her times tables as it was the Christmas Holidays?!).

How can we be sure to keep up? (I appreciate some people will say don't bother and why but given we have decided we would like to I'd appreciate to know how much work and how early on other families are putting in).

I would talk to the schools you are thinking of her going to about this. If she's reasonably clever, it is not in their interest to turn her down.
Different areas of the country seem to vary massively (e.g. My BIL tutors 7 year olds in London whose lives seem to consist of absolute nothing but being prepped for the competition that is life), whereas in a more normal part of the country people seem to manage by working through age-appropriate Bond books.
I would expect the school admissions person to be reasonably honest with you.

It is hard to know because even privates varies considerably. You need to ask the school you are interested in or parents with chikd

children in those schools ideally.

2 hours a week seems an awful lot for a little girl. What after school activities does
she do? Particularly clubs like Beavers and Brownies I have found to "educational" in that they learn first aid etc. What is the standard of the private school you are aiming for? Our local private school has a fairly laid back junior school and then ramp it up at secondary.

People tutor for 1-2 years before the 11+ and good tutors might get booked up a year before they start (London)

It will depend on the private school and your DC. Like DS1's secondary school, it is not super selective, It ranks from 50-100 in independant school. Our area has no grammar school, so there is not a trend to do much tutoring outside school. The independant school takes top 30% I think. Which mean if you DC is in the top group of the class, then you only need to do a bit practice to get DC used to the exam.

If the school you plan to go is not super selective,Maybe you can let her try some workbook at her age, if she can get most right, then relax.And if you have plan to move your DC in a year or 2 years time, I think you can start to let her get used to a bit of home work every day. Maybe 15 minutes every day( you can do math 1 day and English the other day)? I think private school normally has more homework. So it's good to get her into the habit.

If it is a super selective, then it's important to find out if your DD has the ability first. I heard children in London are under big pressure to get into some famous school.

The 11+ school wont be super selective and if we move her before yr7 she won't need to sit the entrance exam. Hence we could move her in year 4 or 5 to avoid the exam. However we wouldn't want her to be behind once she gets in and we also want the option for her to transfer to another private school at 13+ which is super selective. So we don't want to leave it all to the last.minute.

We don't live in London so we don't have waiting lists for tutors ;-).