Advice on year 10 maths tutor please

[fitflop]

My DS has finished year 9 on a 4- and one mark off a 4 in Maths.

He has attended a tutor group of 5 children once a week for the last couple of years.

He still seems to lack confidence in quite a bit of the work and seems to have trouble remembering the information when tested. He also doesn't seem to have a good revision technique.

I feel he would be better with a 1-1 tutor as these are all areas they could work on, but my DS isn't keen (especially as it is a teacher he knows but I think this could be a good thing!).

His tutor says that he doesn't currently need a 1-1 and that children can learn to rely on the tutor too much and under the new exams they have to work as indepently as possible. Most other people I have spoken to say that from year 10 a 1-1 tutor would be much better.
Anyone got any advice?

The new maths GCSE is horrendously difficult, and no one can actually tell you if your DS is 1 mark off a 4, well into a 4, or actually missed a 4 by quite a bit. We don't know at the moment.

Group tutoring is probably ok for boosting maths further down the school but for GCSE it's really good to have individual attention, where a tutor can specifically address issues that your DS is having and tailor the tutoring to his particular needs.

If you can afford it, I'd go for 1-1, if not now, then up to Y10 exams and for Y11.

In September the Maths teachers will have more accurate grade boundaries. It depends on your son's target -- a 4 in Year 9 isn't necessarily too bad if he's hoping for a 6 or 7 at GCSE. If he's hoping for an 8 or 9 then it is a cause for concern...although that ship may have already sailed.

Can I make a suggestion before you pay good money for a tutor? Over the summer you need to brush up your own knowledge. Make sure you and your son both understand:

• what Maths skills and topics are on the exam (write these all down in one list)
• how each of the 3 papers differs from the others
• the format and style of questions

Once you do that, you can raise the level of discussion in your home away from just "maths" and into specific strengths and problem areas. Then you'll be giving any tutor you hire a specific brief and you'll be able to see if it's working.

I agree with the previous poster.

I've learned that when it comes to teens, the right teacher can make a massive difference. My y11 son left y10 with E in chemistry but in y11 started getting consistent A*

I'm not sure that 4 is bad in y9. I have a dd in y9 who's good at maths and if the 4 is based on an actual GCSE paper then I'm not sure she'd score much more. She's not covered topics like cosine rule, sine rule, standard deviation so would get Zero when those topics popped up at the moment.