£45 to £60 per hour for 11 plus tuition

[confusedinlondon]

Slightly taken aback at the prices for 121 11 plus tuition. Just looking online it seems £45 upwards for face 2 face tuition, slightly lower for online. There are a fair few asking for around £60.
How much did you pay?

A West London Mum told me that, the tutor, who used to be the senior teacher of a notutor policy preschool which has the reputation of being golden ticket of sending girls to a secondary private which is considered as Oxbridge Ivy league feeder school, 121 is over 100 per hour this year, and there is a long waiting list.

Never tried 121 ourself and I don't really think one need to invest that kind of money to achieve those outcomes. But that part of area the demographic is not the typical parent population, it is really cutthroat and a lot of social pressure to overachieve and play the "game".

all tutors are not equal, with the very best ones adding a lot more value.

£60 would be, if not quite top dollar [e.g. there are some who specialise in getting kids into those handful of schools which are both very expensive and very academically exclusive, the sky is almost the limit there], a highish rate in any part of the country.

We are charged £45 an hour. Comparable with music lessons which are £22 for 30mins.

All are self employed so will have to fund tax, pensions and holidays so seems a fair price for skilled teachers but still expensive

London tutoring prices are truly revolting. A friend of mine was quoted £250ph by one of the "leading" tutor agencies. And that was after a £150 "sign up fee".

Another online tutoring company is charging £700 for 5 half day days (15 hours total) of online group tutoring - 8 kids and a tutor on a Zoom call together. How effective is that going to be? And yet parents are paying almost £50ph for it. It's all just testament to how horrible an arms race the 11+ has become. And it seems to be only recent. Talk to parents who went through this even 5 years ago and it doesn't seem to have been as bad as this. I'm not sure what's effected the change, but it's definitely not good for the kids who are put under increasing pressure.

Many parents in our area have been hiring tutors for their children for a long time. The quoted figure by OP was very normal in our area even for 10 years ago. They prepare them for various exams, such as 4+, 7+, 11+, 13+ and beyond, with great seriousness and competitiveness. However, some parents (past or current) are dishonest or downplay the amount of tutoring they provide.

This could be because they feel the need to pretend that getting into a good senior school is a trivial matter for social status reasons. This may lead them to conceal or understate their enormous efforts, such as supporting their children with their academic performance, which can often cause stress and anxiety. Another reason could be that they want to avoid being seen as too pushy or too competitive by others who are involved in their children’s education. Some parents may worry that they will be labelled as “tiger parents” or “helicopter parents” who put too much pressure on their children and hinder their independence and growth. But the truth is that they all do it to some degree over the years throughout their children's life, at a astronomical sum of money.

I think you can spend an awful lot of money on a tutor, and some people do. But my experience is that it’s not necessary - DC from our state primary got into selective London secondaries with quite a wide range of input which ranged from expensive 1:1 tuition to a mix that included group prep, holiday courses on weak areas (eg creative writing), online tutoring, home prep by a parent, mock exams etc.

We looked at tutors, at various price points, but came to the conclusion that we could get past papers, work out what needed covering in terms of topics, and book mock exams, so in the end went the home prep route. If you don’t have the time for that, it is worth thinking about exactly what you need from the tutor (is it the external pressure, or their access to relevant past papers, or ability to explain maths concepts or whatever), and finding one who will do that, rather than focusing on price.

we pay £40 1-2-1 for online tuition for our three. I think it's usually £50 but we have three taking lessons so they gave us a discount.
We found finding a tutor dreadful...we had some awful experiences, even from seemingly reputable and well known tutoring businesses.
We too found there was A LOT of gatekeeping around which tutor they were using. We've now got a great online company who've been a god send so feel free to DM if you'd like a recommendation.

It is a public secret that many parents spend a fortune on extra tutoring to secure a place for the "top tier" schools in some areas of London . The stigma around tutoring made it a more taboo topic in the past, especially in the private school sector.

I believe that the pandemic has increased the availability, affordability and transparency of online tools such as Zoom and learning platforms such as Atom, for a wider audience.
This has suddently raised average "innate intelligence" for many selective schools admissions, as many able kids are now from outside the traditional prep circle. The inner circle parents who won't settle for just good results have to up their game, and you will see the same top prep school kids in every zoom group session, in addition to the daily 121 tutoring routine, holiday exam prep camp, and of course attending every mock test opportunity.

The winners of this is the tutoring industry and the selective schools which will surely have a better league table results in years time to come.

I don't believe state primaries are actually allowed to prep for 11+.

I was told this by my sons' primary Head. But after a new Head took over, he began running a weekly after school 11+ prep club. It only runs for the summer term and he's run it for the last couple of years now. The number who gain Grammar places has increased by about 30% in those years (including my youngest son). They also now offer Y5 CAT tests to help parents decide if their child will benefit from doing the 11+ .

The inner circle parents who won't settle for just good results have to up their game, and you will see the same top prep school kids in every zoom group session, in addition to the daily 121 tutoring routine, holiday exam prep camp, and of course attending every mock test opportunity.

This! Absolutely this! My East Asian friend who does not shy away from being a tiger mum, had her state primary daughter prepare for the 11+ entrance last year in SW London. She realised that the same group of kids from the prestigious prep schools were also in the weekend tutoring centre targeting for grammar schools from Y5. The same familiar faces are in different Zoom classes during Summer holidays until Xmas, covering subjects from VR/NVR, comprehension, maths, creative writing to interview techniques. She encountered the same group of kids in every school's first round, second round and interview stage, then saw most of them joining the same school they accepted in the induction day!

I find this somewhat hard to believe, not least because almost no children from the SW London "prestigious prep schools" go to grammar schools. They almost all go to private London day schools or boarding schools. (This is fact, not hearsay - the information is freely available on each prep school website as regards the destinations of their Y6 pupils). Also, grammar schools don't conduct interviews.

Sounds like your friend may have been exaggerating quite wildly (also a negative downside of MN more generally).

To clarify, the prep schools kids attended the weekend tutoring centre course for grammar schools in SW London, which also astonished my friend. They took both grammar and private schools tests. My friend's DC and other kids are now enrolled in a private school. She is not making it up.

£37/week for small group tuition with a very highly regarded local firm. They get excellent results (obviously this comes with parental engagement too) but their teaching techniques are really helpful.

Mine has had x3 mock exams on the past year so she's had plenty of practice about timing, what the exam room and conditions are like. We get detailed feedback on how their performance compared with those who got places on the previous year etc so we can be realistic about chances.

We are in South Warwickshire which is mega competitive as only a few Grammars and all the kids who used to go to the Birmingham schools now try and get into Warwickshire as Birmingham whacked strict catchments on their grammars. There's under 400 places for A Warwickshire schools

If the exam is just reasoning tests, then any parent who has the time and energy should be able to do this themselves. If it's maths & English outside the standard curriculum, then a professional is probably worth it. But not for the rest. There's plenty of online material & practice papers available and the test is aimed at bright 10 year olds, so a motivated adult ought to be more than capable of managing.

My top tip would be to encourage a love of reading for pleasure. That's the best way to widen vocabulary and get a good feel for word patterns. It's a lot more fun than word lists and sets you up for life.

"the prep schools kids attended the weekend tutoring centre course for grammar schools in SW London, which also astonished my friend. They took both grammar and private schools tests"

It is very common that prep schools kids attend Grammar School tests. Most of them might not take the offer in the end (only if they are good enough to pass the test first) . Some parents just want them to take it as free mock under exam conditions, some pushy parents want to do some reality fact check to make sure their kids from prep are well ahead of the mainstream cohorts. After grammar test they will be full steam ahead (tutor/prep) for the privates.

£48 online - 1 hr - English teacher
£45 atom online but I did have to buy block of 12 lessons and it was a student taking maths at college so no teaching experience / very young but we dropped lucky with her as my boy liked her! So probably worked in our favour

£35/hour in person 1-2-1 here in Gloucestershire with a very highly regarded tutor who has a high success rate with the students she works with. I thought that was a lot but seems more reasonable seeing what people pay elsewhere.

Thank heavens for state grammars and their stairway to social mobility…..

£60-£200 per hour for a teacher around SW London. Tutor prices vary from £30 to £200 depending on experience, qualifications.

Quite…

We pay £50/h.

Music tuituion is £100/h.

SE England in 2023. Paid £50ph.