Private school AND tutors, what am I missing?

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Just came back from a drinks eve with some fellow Year 1 mothers. Our children are in an independent primary that goes straight through to senior so no need to do 7+ or 11+. The school is high ranked and academic. Additional kids join at Year 3 and year 7 after doing entrance exams.

Several of the parents are paying for their kids to do extra maths with tutors. These are not kids who are behind in maths, they are the bright ones. The rationale seems to be that the 7+ kids joining in Year 3 will have been intensively tutored so the “straight through” kids need to be at the same level.

My DS is really really good at maths. Teacher says he is easily the best in the class. I kind of figured that was good enough, the school knows what it is doing and he’ll be absolutely fine in junior school. What are all these parents scared of- am I missing something here? They are not even 7, GCSEs are years away.

Why are you surprised by this? Of course people who are buying what they perceive to be a better education for their children are prepared to spend money on buying even more advantage.

Because their parents have masses of money and are insecure & think throwing money at a (usually) non-existent problem will improve their children's life chances. In the majority of cases it'll make no difference at all to their futures.

Unless the children in OP's post have specific learning issues - such as English as an Additional Language, previous loss education due to childhood illnesses, dyslexia or dyscalculus then they're just hot housing. A parent I know moved her 5 year old to a different private school as the first one wasn't academic enough!

My kids are at private schools & had 13+ entrance exams and neither had private tutors to get in - they were in the minority it turned out, but we figured if they couldn't pass with their previously good education & needed help to get in then they would struggle / continue to need tutors to keep up once in the school. Once in school a couple of EAL children have additional English lessons but a lot have tutors for subjects they're already expecting 9's for. They get enough homework in secondary without tutoring. It's insane and rarely helps the children - but the parents can console themselves they did all they could for them - usually whilst wondering why they've dropped out of sixth form college or uni - when the kids have to manage their own time & study for the first time ever.

Usually those who join 7 and 11+ have joined from state.

This is why they are often tutored. Not necessarily because they are behind but because they need someone experienced in how to teach to that particular test rather than the state education tests.

All pupils are taught to test through school.

Most GCSEs because nearly all independent schools choose to offer these exams as well.

I wouldn't bother tutoring a year 1 child.

But I would consider a tutor for gcse if it was a core subject and they needed extra help in it.

Yep, I see private tutors round my way advertising and listing the schools their current students attend. All those schools are £££. It seems like a poor advert for the state of private school teaching.

I do now wonder if this has always gone on. I thrived at my prep, sailed through the entrance exams of all the local selectives and then promptly flopped and was kicked out of my selective secondary. I couldn't keep up and couldn't work out why. Perhaps many of my classmates were being heavily tutored even back then.

Transferred to the local comp where things were much less pressured and came out with great grades.

DC will be state all the way. I refuse to expose them to the pressures I had put on me.

I read these threads and think about how much money I’ve saved! DC have gone to state schools, no tutoring (other than music lessons), and are on track for good grades.

Having gone to a private school myself I know the fear that your child will not fulfil their potential and you’ll let them down - but having got past that I’ve never regretted the decision. They’ve both had great teachers at two different schools. What we did do was read to them every night for as long as they wanted, buy books, get a library card, go to the theatre etc. I helped ds with GCSE French - his weakest subject - but he’s streets ahead of any maths/science I did.

You are missing this thread :

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/primary/4829253-views-on-tutoring-prep-school-kids

Tutoring at year 1/3/11 private/prep/state is a weekly popular topic in MN.

I suppose what I can’t get my head around is that exam results have a ceiling- there is no point in tutoring to above A* level (or above whatever level the school is teaching each year) because they are not assessed on that anyway. All that would happen is that they’d get bored in school, and that seems like a colossal own goal when you’re paying for the school teaching experience. Fair enough, as someone said, if you get close to exam years and they are looking like not doing as well as they could but pushing an already-able child behind what the school is teaching when they are only seven is just madness.

My DH has a science degree and chats to DS about maths stuff as they go about their day, because DS enjoys it. But he’d be totally turned off if we made him do extra lessons at weekends.

Thank you for this!

Thank you for this!

Private school friends had an entire schedule of tutors for most subjects. Their argument was that the schools were so ridiculously competitive, they needed to do everything they could to give their child the edge.

@Iamkitty but all the kids can get the same exam results, it’s not like only one can “win”. So what is the competition within school that they need their kids to win, to have an edge in?

DC will be state all the way. I refuse to expose them to the pressures I had put on me.

This is the interesting thing- the school is not putting on pressure, it is the parents who are saying not enough pressure being applied by the school so they are going elsewhere to push them.

But the school DID put pressure on me because I was not keeping up with my peers. I was asked to leave the school. It knocked my confidence.

In contrast I thrived at a big standard state school.

Crazy. My kids were at an independent school and I asked my dds math teacher, in the lead up to GCSEs, whether I should get her a tutor as she was finding it hard (8 & 9s in all other subjects). He said something that stuck with me, that I pay enough for a private school and they should be able to help her before automatically hiring a tutor - and this was leading up to crucial exams! No way would I have even thought about getting tutor for primary years.

My friends who have had children at private school have all paid for tutoring. But they were not academic private schools and the quality of the teaching there was shocking (only 3 schools so can't comment on the entire system). Half of them didn't have a qualification in a subject related to the one they were teaching so pe teachers also taught history and geography for example (this was to GCSE). I never understood why they paid for education as their children would have done better in the local comps - certainly academically but also socially as they were in tiny private schools with very few friendship options.

Sorry @queenofthewild I wasn’t questioning what you said, I was drawing a distinction between your experience (in which perhaps there might have been a reason to have tutored) and the specific school that my DS attends. Sorry you had a rough time.

Yes, this is what I would expect of the school. Did she do well in the end?

Is this Highgate? 😂 Don't worry OP, just take it easy. The Y3 newcomers do tend to be ahead, but it evens out by Christmas.

I just don't get it either. As people have said upthread, the highest you can get in Maths GCSE is a 9, which doesn't seem to be that hard if you have some aptitude for Maths. My DC is on track for a 9 in a pretty rubbish state school with minimal setting and no tutoring. So why tutor at age 7? Am I missing something?

No, not Highgate. I think I am perhaps not being clear here about what my concern is- why should it matter if some 7+ kids are a bit ahead going into Year 3?

It doesn’t matter a jot if the other kids are solving quadratic equations aged 9 because the classes won’t teach that far beyond the required level. My son is not struggling. No different to a kid who is a musical prodigy doing their instrument out of school, or a talented gymnast competing at weekends- it’s interesting to chat about but doesn’t have any impact on my child’s education. Or does it?

I’d actually be a bit worried that bored tutored kids will get disruptive in class, or mouthy about how they have already done this stuff.

You're right, it doesn't and you're also right in that it makes the teachers jobs much more difficult/can make kids disruptive. It takes away from the joy of learning with your peers and really tends to bring out a horrible attitude in smart kids, when they correct the teacher by showing off that they know a better method or they learnt that AGESSSS ago.
Most of these smart kids could probably do maths GCSE to a good level by Y6, but that's not the point really. If you want that, homeschool.

Same at our DCs independent school although not for Maths.

Ok as a parent of a child going to a mildly selective school, where demands go up after ks2 and all classes become full.. and we're a hard working family simply prioritizing education. (meaning not rich)
What I observed is that people don't send their kids to prep schools to avoid having to tutor, it's not really a consideration. They just want the best (or better) for their children which in their view is a private school. Many don't even consider state schools at all, just doesn't seem to occur to their minds.
As children progress onto junior school from pre-prep and the school pushes children further for an accelerated curriculum (1 year ahead), parents' view on the academics start to go different ways. Some saying school is not doing enough, some saying school is pushing too hard etc. There are just so many different expectations depending on the child, family etc and people start to make decisions... whether to move schools or add tutoring to 'compensate their anxiety or lack of satisfaction. Again, reasons vary, some tutor to keep up with the pace of school, some tutor because they don't feel school is doing enough, some do with intentions to 'move up' at 11+, sense of competition etc.
I also had this fantasy of not having to tutor my child before joining, but you can make up so many excuses that you need one later. If you can afford it, why not.

@lililililililili "If you can afford it, why not."

Because they're already at school all day and deserve a childhood. Why not let them play?

@Foxesandsquirrels isn't this thread specifically about private school children getting tutored - I agree with you, private or not, children deserve childhood and I don't agree with extensive tutoring either. That said, it is up to each household to decide what's best for their child.

Yeap. I don't agree with your statement though. Just because you can afford it, doesn't mean you should. It's not as simple as, why not.