So where's this years Trinity/Whitgift/Dulwich/Alleyns thread

[soooooooknowwhat]

And any other schools you may wish to add... Have used threads from the previous few years as part of my research and ds sat Trinity today! I'm more of a lurker than a thread starter but decided to bite the bullet and offer a hand to hold. Good luck to all dc's sitting exams over the next few weeks!

You are paying for the different school experience.

If you see school as a whole journey, that makes sense in itself.

If you see it just as means to destination (offer from suitable next school) for which your DC needs tutoring either way, then you'd see the cheaper option (just the tutor costs) as better VFM, because you won't want to buy all the other things the school does as they are not directly linked to your goal.

AnotherNewt is spot on imo. Parents choose independent prep school for a whole host of reasons which may or may not be linked to a secondary school entrance. In fact, if it was purely to gain entrance at 11+ to a desired school, then my advice would be to save the money and hire tutors at a fraction of the cost!

I believe tutoring is each to their own. My DS just didn't need it and maybe he's lucky. DS at an independant primary and there are a number of kids who struggle so I'm sure they're having tutoring. I suppose you do what you feel is best for your child. However I just get irked when he gets asked about being tutored! Anyway....roll on the 9th....it's going to be a tense couple of weeks! 😩🍷🤞

Most people tutor in some form or other. Ds went to a group tutor and said so when asked at Alleyns, DC and WUS. Didn't stop him getting offers and scholarships. I know several children at each of these schools and they are all still being tutored in various subjects. If you can afford the help, then why wouldn't you? I'll be hoping to help ds further down the line (he's at a state school though with larger classes).

I agree with Tolacar that it's wrong to ask if a child is tutored. Even worse to ask for a favourite school imo.

Tutors have their place in the educational set up and how they are utilised will differ from child to child and situation to situation

I think this is a very objective statement Firefox

My opinion though is that if your child is coping, has no SEN, is achieving and applying effort well and is happy - then you can take it as a sign they're in the right school for them. Ongoing tutor scenario is unnecessary. I don't get the point of it. If the demand for this type of tuition diminished, I think that'd be a good thing for everyone.

Tuition should be applied strategically.

I think there is a difference between regular parental engagement in learning and tutoring. I agree some parents do take on a role of tutor but I wouldn't consider doing practise papers and going through wrong answers with my kids as tutoring. If so I'd charge myself out!!

Live and let live though.

We sent ds to a prep because he is disabled (outing so not saying what!) which means he was late with physical milestones and we knew he would struggle at a big state school. The academic side of things didn't even occur to us tbh. I can understand tutoring at a prep for a child who has a mental block in one area and teachers just dont' have the time to give them enough attention, or SEN for example. We didn't tutor because we felt he was busy enough with what we felt was a reasonable but significant workload from the prep and he has a lot of extra-curricular interests which take up most evenings and weekends, we didn't want to cut back on those for extra tutoring. He has always done well enough academically and perhaps with tutoring he could have got a slight edge but for us it wasn't worth it as he was fine. There are many at his prep who do tutor and I do personally feel if your ds doesn't have any extra needs then the workload and teaching at the prep should be enough for your ds to get into a school where they will be challenged but not completely out of their depth. I think a certain amount of tutoring, in prep schools at least, is to do with competitive parenting. Half of ds's extension maths set had extra tutoring (the teacher asked for a show of hands), these dcs were doing very advanced maths, ds was bringing GCSE questions home for hwk, imho these very able children were being hothoused by their ambitious parents who had sights set very firmly on St Pauls/Westminster/KCS and nothing else. In most cases I suspect it wasn't even making much of a difference as these dc are already very bright, but it did play to parental anxiety. I would hate for my ds to have to spend the rest of his days being tutored at a very academic school and I wouldn't want to pay school fees AND tuition for the rest of his time at school.

We didnt send any of our older kids via the prep route and wish we had. We can see the benefit of the prep having been through the 11+ process three times, our junior school isnt interested in private school and they are only now with my DS prepping for sats which is their primary focus. Whereas friends with kids in prep have been working since yr 5 towards entrance exams. Doesn't mean they are any brighter than my DC but they are better prepared and able to churn out the results required at the expected level. Although I have to say if a child has gone to a good prep and has ended up being in amongst the results for the state school kids then I would think the school would pick the state child as they will be seen to have more potential. A tutor for a state child doing 11+ isn't enough Imo. It's usually only an hour a week and I ended up getting my son sitting tests every day with me and his dad worked on his maths. His tutor was for English as he had problems in this area. My youngest DS was at a 3+ assessment at a local prep recently and wish we had done the same with my others. They teach the children from a young age how to be independent learners, create a lust for learning, class sizes are smaller and the kids get a lot of extra curricular too in the younger years which is unfortunately frowned upon within the state system and the first to be cancelled. As for tutoring within the private system, I would be concerned that I had chosen the wrong school for my DC if I also had to pay for additional tuition. I know kids at A and JAGs who have tutors because your viewed as a failure if your achieving an A and not an A not sure how it works with the new levels. However i knew of girls not being able to choose A levels at these schools for specific subjects because there predicted grades were A and not A . Not the type of school I would want to send my children but that's because it's not the type of learning environment that my child would thrive in, my oldest thrived at W and my DD is churning out 9s at St D. So we must also ensure we are not putting unnecessary pressure on our DC by placing them in a school which doesn't allow them to thrive without the need for extra tuition. We must remember these are our children, not our employees. Look after them and their mental health and not place too much unnecessary pressure on them. They are not young for long!

I'm with soooowhat and spacecadet. It comes down to the purpose of tutoring, which everyone is entitled to have different views on. If tutoring is being used as additional support to meet the level needed for success (11+ etc) - I think that's reasonable. To tutor just for the sheer hell of it to stay ahead, I'm not so sure.

Accelerating bright kids to super bright....to what end? This gives schools a skewith standard of expectation and then everyone feels they are being crap parents not to have a regular tutor.

IntheMotherhood - this is the sad issue! "To tutor just for the sheer hell of it to stay ahead..." I definitely know of a high performing dc who is top top top at A who has a tutor to stay at that high rank. I'm pretty sure the parents don't think it's for the sheer hell of it, that top rank is a must.

Lentils perhaps that's just as their DD wants it? Perhaps the situation is such that she doubts her ability to do it on her own....?

Anyway - this forum isn't to paint anyone in a particular light. No one knows anyone's full story.

Peace &

Lurker here and have a yr5 daughter who has 1.5 hrs group tutor a week and the otherday one person told me that their child doesnt need a tutor only going to the library with daddy every weekend for maths and weekdays with mommy for English. Love everything Firefox said and wish it should have sticked somewhere as a sticky post to end all crazy conversation about a child is tutored externally isnt as good as a child who has “support/teaching” from family(or many times both). Anyway, mine goes to state school and we only started VR very recently with the tutor and havent started NVR yet as the group tutor targets dont have our schools which test NVR, they dont learn any of these at schools either so extra work/tutor is much needed (and we both do long hours and also see her by a glimpse at the end of each week day so parents support is NONE).

Re: the tutoring question, both dd and ds went to a local state primary. DD is now in y8 in a w london indie school and she was asked in her interviews about whether she was tutored. She answered that she had a tutor come in once a week for an hour, as her school was way behind the standard expected, plus her mother helped her at the weekend. Didn't occur to me that any of this would be frowned upon. We had no support from the school at all in terms of her indie applications and she was the only child in her year to apply to an indie.
Like some others upthread, I think it is unfair to ask the children these questions in their interviews, especially when a certain type of child will worry about what the 'right' answer is. Dd didn't worry about the 'right' answer, and completely enjoyed the interview process, but she is very sociable, chatty and articulate. DS is another matter though....

Having said that, I do know of a child who is at a competitive indie prep in SW London whose parents have her tutored intensively over the summer on the FULL CURRICULUM of the year ahead, so she is automatically ahead of everyone else when the year starts. Madness.

DS had two 11+ interviews yesterday and BOTH asked him how many other schools he had applied for and where that school was in the list, which I thought was totally unfair. DS was thrown and I feel bad as I hadn't prepared him for that. He also didn't know whether to mention that he hadn't got an interview at all of the schools.... balancing out the fact that 2 schools were no longer on the feasible list with the fact that he was 'rejected' by two schools. Poor little chap, he really worried about what the 'right' answer was....

Bless your ds orangina I really feel for him. If it's any consolation ds had the same questions, was completely flummoxed and actually lied He told them he hadn't applied to the sister school as he thought they would be cross if he had done. No idea what possessed him to do that as I know the Registrars talk but we all do daft things under pressure and 10-year-old boys are no different! He also for some weird reason said he had been tutored 'a bit' - again, completely not true - said he meant the extra homework school gave them to do over Xmas (which, ironically he didn't actually complete). Ds is a pleaser and doesn't like to get the 'wrong' answer so I honestly think he said what he thought the interviewer wanted to hear! Not much we can do now but wait, but I'll be bloody impressed if the interviewer manages to see through all that and see fit to make an offer!

Each to their own but the head of one good and lovely prep school say to their parents if you really need a private tutor after all the work we do to get your child in to your first choice please consider if thats the right school for your child. What child wants hours of tutoring on top of 4 or 5 hours per week homework?

One good thing about being at primary school - we had a very good look at state schools and are actually reasonably relaxed about what happens next. If he ends up in state secondary it wont be the end of the world.

Ive justed asked our ds wasnt asked about tutoring in any of his interviews ( he wouldnt be able to lie!) he was asked why he liked the school etc.

To add to my comment, i meant if child still needs several hours a week tutoring at say dc on top of all the homework what sort of life is that for them?

There is no question quite a of parents are super competitive these days. When i was a prep school in late 70’s tutoring was unheard of. But then in those days dc, t, a st pauls girls etc were not the schools they are today.!

ds wasn’t asked about tutoring, only why he wanted to come to W - makes me like the school more and more hearing how some of the other schools interviewers more like interrogated the children very unfair. Having said all that ds sat 10+ and maybe the tutor question is asked at 11+.

I really don’t think you need to worry too much about admitting to tutoring for 10+ / 11+ exams.

I’m sure all the schools mentioned here will fully expect every state primary entrant to have had tutoring of some sort. (Maybe not so much the prep pupils: seeing as they effectively have years of tutoring for the exams just by dint of being at a prep, if they admitted to extra tutoring on top then that might raise a few questions).

As one head said in an open day speech: “we would prefer you not to tutor your children, but we fully understand why you might want to do so”.

Re: asking a child which is their favourite school. Yes, maybe it is a bit unfair. But with many parents now applying for 6/7 or more schools, some of which surely can’t be within a reasonable commute, then it must be making it so much more difficult to manage offers, and not over/under offer by too much. So any extra information that they can get as to the likelihood of an acceptance must be helpful.

How many parents out there are also teachers?
My sister is a teacher and also a parent, and she came with us to many of the school visits - both indie and state
She often says to me that there are different styles and methods of teaching, just as there are different types of children. One method does not suit all.
She has been asked to help out with extra 'tuition' in the past. What that usually means to her is approaching the subject in a different way which that the child is more likely to grasp. That helps to build that child's confidence as and a result they perform better in the school classroom as they are more likely put their hands up and contribute and get involved. They are also more likely to put their hands up when they don't understand something, rather than sitting there in silence and therefore falling behind.
She will also ask the parents of the child to speak to the school and let them know what is not working for that child, so that the school has a chance to make amends if they can. The school's response will vary dependent on if they can make the adjustment or not.
I don't see anything wrong with this approach, but there again, I am biased

I think also asking Re: favourite school is unfair, because the although, children will be part of the decision making, at the end of the day the parents make the ultimate decisions. And also at that age they dont necessarily see what parents see, that may be good or not good for them.
My DD was in love with a school, which we thought at the time would be potentially good for her and so conveniently close to home. We know people with DC at the school who seemed happy. (Bear in mind the girls’ and some COED schools interview before the main exam or even on the same day).
After the open day DH and I realised it wasn’t the really best the school for DD and discussed some of what we observed with a friend who has DD there ( who is my DD’s friend too). Anyway it turns out they are unhappy with the school for the reasons we cited and had contemplated taking out their DD out. But they’ve decided to bear with until the end of GCSES. They thought it would get better each year and tried various things with the school, but unfortunately they left it late.

Interview was before the exam, (as DD really liked it we registered her to seat the exam), she had to go back for the written test and a scholarship assessment. On both the latter days she came back saying she doesn’t like the school at all. She really enjoyed the written exam and the asssesment, so those weren’t the problem, but she just said there was something not right about it. By now she had 3 interviews in total, if she had been asked her first choice school she would’ve mentioned this school as she really wanted to go there. Now she doesn’t want to go there at all. She said she’d rather go to the least favourite initially than go there. We are happy she is no longer interested in the school, makes life easier for us. Sorry long winded, I know, but I just wanted to make a point.

As for tutoring, wether in prep or not, I think parents’ as a whole are trying to help their kids and not doing it for the heck of it. Everyone has unique circumstances that people looking onbthe outside are not always privy to. And
of course there will be outliers....

Just asked my DS and he wasn't asked whether he was tutored at any interviews.

Welcome to the forum Greenleave , don't think you'll find anyone here judging you on your decision to tutor your child, particularly to cover areas that bridge state-private curriculum.

Do state schools not cover NVR and VR? My DS also sat a number of state secondary exams in London and a number of boroughs base their entry criteria on VR and NVR papers (no writing or long form maths). NVR is said to be fairer for kids who don't have English as mother tongue. NVR is meant to be less teach-to-the-test which is rubbish as it's just a case of practise.

None of my kids had VR or NVR at state school. My eldest hadnt even written an essay until half way through year 6. Luckily my two older kids found the reasoning papers easy and we just got them to practice. Didn't need a tutor for that as i could do it. We got a tutor for my DS who has just done the 11+ who had issues with English...he had been behind at school following health issues so he needed more focussed help. He also found verbal an issue so i worked with him on that. I would have no concern getting a tutor for IGCSE if my DS or DD were struggling with a specific subject.