Could a child be unsuccessful because of a tutor?

[Daogroupie]

I think she is being highly responsible by not just taking the money from the parents when she knows the students do not have the right ingredients for success. It is not just the academic ingredients, it is the personal motivation of the student. Parents can want their students to sit the exams but if the student does not want to really work and go to the school then they are wasting their time and money. No tutor should accept students unless they are personally bought into the process. We had a neighbour who went to a tutor for hours every week but never did any of the homework. We used to see her watching hours of TV or hanging around in the shopping centre or just wandering around the streets with friends. All the other candidates knew she was not doing anything but the parents thought they were paying for somebody else to own the problem, however the tutor felt that if the parents did not bother to make sure she was doing the homework that was not her problem. Needless to say she did not get a place and her parents could not understand why students in her class on lower tables did. It was simple, they did the work and she did not. The tutor should have told the parents that unless she did the homework she would not progress or better still should have taken her on for a trial period and not continued when it was clear that she had no interest in the work and no intention of doing the homework. DG

[mystery]

The situation you describe would be a fair tutor. The problem I had was a tutor with no motivation. After a brief interlude with her I went back to d I y.

[titch]

I wish we had done more homework on tutors and their methods prior to selecting. Our ds tutor gave his students a test paper to complete each week of which half done during session leaving half as homeworker, rest of tutoring session was spent marking paper and timestable/maths test. We did consider looking for another but we were late starters so felt changing would be to disruptive. However the week before test when the tutor asked which questions ds found difficult so he could go over how you approach them I was flaberguasted, thought that was what he should have done at the beginning. When I asked ds if the tutor had ever discussed how to approach each question type he said no it was only us (his parents) that had gone through them with him. Fortunately our ds passed by the skin of teeth.

[Daogroupie]

So if half the session was marking a paper and half a session was doing the paper, did he spend any time at all actually teaching? DG

[herdream1]

Would anyone let me know what is the best use of the limited time with the 1-2-1 tutor? I hear that normally during the each session, children do test papers and together mark them. Where the mistakes were found, the tutor explains how to do it (I would guess 1/4 of the session time?). In the following week's session, the children do another test paper. So it is up to the parents to work on the weak areas. Majority of the session time is spent doing the papers and marking them.

Would your tutor let the children do test papers as homeworks and the parents marks them, so that in the next session, the tutor could spend most of the time working on the mistakes made?

Would your tutor provide additional materials/papers to work on your children's particular weaknesses, rather than the same test papers for all the children??

I would love to know what exactly your 1-2-1 tutor did during the session. And was one hour enough???

Thank you.

[Daogroupie]

Why would you pay for one to one time if a student is just going to sit and do a paper then mark it? Where is the teaching? Why not do the paper at home, mark it , ring the ones that need help and work on those with the tutor? You should be paying for teaching not the use of a table and a chair. If the tutor is just running and marking papers then that is mocks not tutoring. DG

[parent2013]

Spot on Daogroupie.

The good tutors focus on the teaching aspects in 1-2-1 and use the time effectively to clarify doubts rather than spending time sipping coffee while child does the test and spend another 15 mins marking. I always suggest that the parents should get involved closely rather than paying and assuming that tutor will take care of everything. The child should do the tests at home, parents to mark the questions (correct/incorrect/doubtful) and then the tutor should only focus on the ones where the child requires help. Also the good tutors will identify the weak areas of your dc (which varies from child to child) and should give you more questions that would consolidate the understanding. They should try to get the best out your child.

If your tutor is not doing this then you know what to do.

The ones we tried in Bromley had little motivation and were just passing time. When challenged on the teaching approach, they were actually happy to lose our business as there were queue of other desperate parents ready to take the slot. I think the parents should check the success rate because you might see 1 child who got into top grammar school by this tutor but may not see another 10 who couldn't get through.

[titch]

I agree completely, we did question the methods but got a very frostie responce. I think we were very naive when we were looking for a tutor and as it was at the beginning of summer term many were already fully booked. Tutoring wasn't something we were 100% comfortable with hence the late start but we were panicked into really as all you hear is very few pass without a tutor no matter how bright.

Its all a learning curve when its you first DC going through 11+ process and we only found this site and the You Tube tutorials a few weeks before the exam (and thank god we did).

I think if we had done our homework earlier we may have gone down the diy route and if we had another DC that would be route I would now choose.

[Oshosh]

Our tutor, concentrated on the basics when she first started, and when the lessons progressed, weak areas where targeted, and then test papers started. But marking was done by me. However questions which was answered wrongly were picked up by the tutor. Then again weak areas were targeted, and taught to DS. Apart from this, alots of shortcuts, and time managament were also taught to tackle the exam. 1 piece of creative writing and english grammar homework was set for DS. Creative writing topic would have been discussed at start of the lesson, prior to be given as homework. Usually NVR/VR would be dealt with one week/ and the next week would be Maths/English.

Hope this helps

[herdream1]

How about the lessons during the school holidays, especially the summer holiday before the exam. Did/do your tutor keep running the weekly sessions during July and August, or took a few weeks' or even longer break? If so do you think what/how much impact it had on the outcome??