How much do you spend on tuition?

[pocketpairs]

Most of the parents in DCs school have private tuition, either class based or 121, more so when they enter GCSE years. How much, if any, do you spend on tuition a month?

Currently paying school fees then £35 each week for an hour’s maths tuition. DD is in year 11 and struggles with maths, it’s her worst subject, and the tutor is helping so much. She was always going to pass but the tutor means she can really aim for those top grades. She’ll never have maths lessons again after next spring, and I don’t begrudge a penny to give her the best opportunity and basis in maths.

There are tutoring agencies and also lots of individual tutors who advertise in various ways. Some are FT teachers or work FT in other roles, so they have limited availability (a maths teacher I know used to tutor for about three hours in a Saturday morning but that was all).

Obvs a full-time tutor will be more flexible as to time and day.

A lot of it is on line now which is really helpful in many ways actually - not just for logistical reasons around where to do the lesson, but also it means your tutor can be anywhere in the UK or indeed the world (I have worked with students in a number of other countries). And a lot of YP prefer to be in their home online – it means they can be in comfy clothes, in their familiar room, it's all a bit lower-key. Of course it can make some things harder (I find listening tasks really hard to work on Zoom) but there are ways to make it work. F2F is also good tho if that works in practical terms (ie if there is a suitable tutor local to you).

I used to tutor English part-time, and it helped the student in that I could pinpoint weaknesses in a way that wasn't possible in a class lesson. I could also concentrate on exam technique and timing. In my professional teaching career, I once took over a "difficult" class who were underachieving, mostly because of attitude and behaviour. I hammered them hard on exam technique and timing, and to our joint mutual surprise, they all went up a grade at least at GCSE. If they'd behaved a bit better from the start, it might have been more!

Nothing, it wasn't necessary. DD got all 8s and 9s at GCSE and all A and A* at A Level at her non-selective state school. She's now thriving at a competitive uni.

If you are paying for tuition, you need to consider what you are hoping to achieve. If extra tuition means the difference between passing and failing, say GCSE maths or English which are required for most jobs, then it may well be useful. If it's to push your child beyond their natural capabilities so they can get in to the next super-competitive place where they will struggle/continue to need support, you need to consider whether that is best for them in the long-term. Be careful you're not setting them up for eventual failure. There's more to life than high grades.

The key is making sure they are qualified teachers who are familiar with the relevant syllabus. I actually messaged my friend who teaches at my children's school for recommendations and all their tutors actually teach at the children's school. This has been very helpful as they know exactly where they are in the syllabus and can access their marks etc so they know what to work on.

My daughter then has a specialist dyslexia tutor who I found through recommendations and research.

I use old, high achieveing, 6th formers from DC’s school, they know the content. I pay them £25 ph, they’re in Uni and very grateful for the money.

YY agree - familiar with the specific GCSE syllabus is a must.

I once assessed a student (back in Covid times) who had had a tutor (not me) who had clearly not taught them anything to do with the actual GCSE syllabus.

For MFL a native speaker is great – but choosing between a teacher who knows the syllabus (but not a native) and a non-teacher with no knowledge of GCSE but a native speaker, then deffo the former. Obvs if we are just talking about speaking practice in a general way, not targeting GCSE or A level, then non-teacher native is fine.

Similarly with say maths (or any other subject tbh) – you need a teacher ideally who knows what you need to know for that exam spec. So do check that they cover or are experienced in the relevant spec as well.

I agree there's a lot more to life than high grades, but I think there are all sorts of occasions when tutors can help

Eg. We have one child who gets bored at school and has tutors for extra stretch (they also learn a lot in their own time too); one who struggled with behaviour for a while in school (suspected ADHD) so they are bright but were bright but under performing, and one who is bright but very dyslexic

I had tutors as a child to cover areas in school when teaching was poor. Far from floundering later on I then got the top marks every year at university. The tutors gave me the skills and confidence to go on to greater things, they countered the impact of patchy teaching and missing lessons due to ill health.

but I think there are all sorts of occasions when tutors can help

I agree. DD was capable, but couldn't keep up with the pace that her maths teacher taught at. She was in the top set, but he taught at the pace of the top scholars of the top set. She just needed someone to explain concepts at her pace. Once she got it she was fine, and aced maths GCSE.

My son does a maths lesson every week, it costs £25 and he’s in a group of up to four .

hes been doing it for two years- next year he’ll do his gsce.

he has a few mild learning difficulties and academics do not come easy for him.

his tutor is confident that if he keeps putting in the effort, he might just manage that magic level 4. It will probably be the only one he passes .

With those grades I'm sure your DD must know to answer the actual question that has been asked. You have not done that here!

You have answered to 'Did you procure tuition for your child?'

That was not the question that was asked.

You also seem to be answering to 'What did your child achieve at GCSE and A level?' and maybe 'Did your child need tuition?'

None of these were the question initially posed.

If you wanted to offer insight, you only needed to post your last paragraph. The rest sounds to me like gloating and probably just had a deflating impact on anyone reading hose child does need more than what their school, and perhaps carers, can give them. Congratulations to your child, but, to take up your theme, was that necessary?

Thar sounds so worthwhile 😊.

Ours were £35 for 90 minutes in 2015/17.

On the contrary. The question in the title was "How much do you spend on tuition?" and was clarified by the OP in their initial post as "How much, if any, do you spend on tuition a month?" so I answered the question accurately. "Nothing" is a legitimate answer to those questions. I did not answer to Did you procure tuition for your child? as you suggest. Had I done so, my post would have started with the word "No".

I then gave context for our decision. Not that it would have been a different decision had she been struggling to pass every GCSE - we didn't have the spare cash to spend on tutors anyway.

I'm sorry if it had "a deflating impact on anyone reading hose child does need more than what their school, and perhaps carers, can give them"? Although I imagine parents who can't afford to pay for extra tuition must feel pretty deflated seeing all these posters who can afford several hundred pounds of tuition a month.

Oh yes, we agree this far. Where we depart is the point where you go on to talk about your child not needing it and how much she achieved without it.

The way I judge whether an answer actually answers the question is whether I can guess the question from the answer. If the answer is 'my DD got 8s and 9s at GCSE', I'd honestly think the question was something along the lines of 'What grades did your child achieve at GSCE?', not anything to do with tuition at all.

I believe your quoted message here gives some more clues that help to understand all of this better. I really doubt anyone was trying to make you feel inadequate about money in posing or responding to the OPs question. I think perhaps that though, drove you to take aim with the impressive academic achievement of your DD. It's a shame because, for me anyway, it took away from your child's achievement. Hey hooo.

I think everyone should be free to do what they want for their child as they see fit.

although in an ideal world, I wish it was not needed, as feel there is too much pressure on children these days. My child is currently doing the 11plus and they are studying gcse level questions!!

The purpose of stating my daughter's achievements was to show that top grades are not simply the preserve of those who have the desire and/or financial ability to buy extra tuition. The OP's initial post suggests that extra tuition is not something they have
considered previously and they've only recently found out others are using it. I felt it would be useful for other parents, and possibly the OP, to see that not every child with top grades got them simply because their parents were able to pay for extra help.

I wonder why you feel the need to police the OP's thread for what you perceive to be valid and invalid answers. I wonder if your response would have been the same had I given those grades and said I'd paid several hundred pounds a month for extra tuition for her to achieve them.

No, the truth!
What tuition might give is confidence in a subject they previously felt out of their depth in.
But in general, I don't agree with it unless a child is not keeping up in school; I think we put far too much store in grades and not enough on wellbeing and free time to find your passions.
Motivated children will do well wherever they are, and if they can get those kinds of grades in a suboptimal environment, then it will stand them in great stead for their future academic and professional life. Unmotivated children probably won't ever excel at academic work because they don't enjoy doing it.

I am surprised at the level of tuition that everyone seems to be undertaking, even at high performing schools.

I'm an advocate of extra support that state schools typically can't provide, especially as they may be disadvantaged during university applications as their grades are compared to their cohort.

Agree that motivation is key, and grades in the scheme of things don't matter that much, especially after your first job. However, every child is different. My DS has a few health issues, and him talking passionately about the junior math olympiad (optional maths competition) makes me think every £ spent on his extra tuition was worth it.

We tutor for a subject that is not offered at our school at the moment, and we're doing this not for GCSE but for European uni access and emigration. GCSE and even A level are not enough for that and it takes years to reach a decent standard.

Motivation is very fluid and can change dramatically within a very short time and depending on external factors like a good teacher, peers attitude to learning, available resources etc.

What do you mean by tutition? Academic or music / sport too? Because often kids whose parents can afford musical instrument lessons, for example, become so good at maths they don’t need maths tuition. Similarly there’s a link between language / stem attainment and sports because it teaches kids resilience.

Sports / PE is considered so important for academic performance at DC’s academically selective private school that all children have to do it everyday right up until A Levels.

I am surprised at the level of tuition that everyone seems to be undertaking, even at high performing schools.

I agree. DD's best friend at university was privately educated yet needed a tutor to get her through chemistry A level.

DD had a maths tutor in year 11 because her maths teacher went too fast, but she managed A levels without extra help.

I agree that if a pupil needs intense tutoring across a wide range of subjects to get to the next level than is it really fair on them to end up struggling when they reach the next level?

I thank my lucky stars that we don't live in an 11+ area. We have no state grammar schools in our county.