It's one of those stories again....

[vasu]

3 hours of study after school every day on top of school homework. Now that would be fantastic wouldn't it. You wouldn't have to bother feeding them, talking to them, or playing with them as they'd have to start the minute they got home and when they'd finished there would only be time for bath and bed (at age 8 that is). And really you wouldn't have to buy them any possessions apart from school uniform and a change of clothes for the weekend tutor session as they wouldn't have the opportunity to need any dance or sport outfits, or need any fashion clothes for leisure time as there wouldn't be any. Maybe by the time they are ten or eleven you could increase it to 4 or 5 hours per evening and then you'd get the telly all to yourself.

Even better - after DC have finished their 1 1/2 hour GS homework, they begin three hours of Uni prep. Perhaps we can sneak into Oxford lectures, record them, and play them for DC's while they sleep. Fully qualified doctors, lawyers etc at the age of 17 and no uni fee's to fork out.

We can only wish our kids can do even a fraction of what the article in the paper is implying. And I truly believe 11+ is harder than A level because of the child's age. They cannot comprehend at such a tender age as why the 11+ exams are so important. It just breaks my heart sometimes that I put ds through hours of studies every week....but then I am in the pushy mum's brigade!

[sherry_d]

Ilesh Kotecha is the founder of the website elevenplusexams.co.uk, which receives more than 500,000 visitors a year, overwhelmingly from middle-class parents

Come on Ilesh give us a wave.

[bondgirl]

overwhelmingly from middle-class parents

I wonder how they know that? Don't remember answering any questions about class when I registered on the forum! And what's middle class these days anyway??

[outofboroughmum]

And what's middle class these days anyway??

Middle class is showing interest in our children's educational progress . As if this is the perogative of middle class only

[Marylou]

It will be interesting to see whether the number of site hits and registrations increase following the mention in the DM!

[sherry_d]

It doesn't really look like more people are signing up Marylou here http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... erlist.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I bet for the tutors listed in the article, it will be great free advertising for them as parents are always looking for tutors.

On a serious note, does anyone really do that sort of tutoring or is it Daily Mail sensationalism? I am struggling to believe what's in the article actually happens in real life esp this

‘My tutors are all now working from 5.15 am until 11pm to fit all the students in, and this is on weekends too.’

[push-pull-mum]

And what's middle class these days anyway??

Middle class is showing interest in our children's educational progress . As if this is the perogative of middle class only

Reminds me of when I was a kid. Everything we asked for (I remember a yoghurt maker was one of them, a doll that played a toy piano was another ) my ardently Socialist mother would reply - "Only middle class people have those, pet," and that was the end of the discussion.

She was also very much against selective education but thoroughly determined that, while it still existed, every one of her children should have it.

[Looking for help]

I have thought very long and very hard about tuition and how things have changed over the years since my eldest took the 11+ exam. He had a bit of tuition with an ex teacher we knew for an hour a week for about 8/9 months , mainly because I had three younger ones and hadn't a clue about 11+ exams. I carried this on with my next three....and for three out of the four this gave a successful outcome. But oh my how things had changed by the time my youngest was preparing. I had no idea there were professional firms out there offering to take your child to a sort of intensive bootcamp at exorbitant cost. I remember going to the open evening at the school a couple of weeks before the test and there being a flyer on my windscreen when I came out, and I thought I could not do something like that to my child. After he didn't pass (never use the word fail), I thought what an idiot, I should have looked into this more and realised that this sort of thing was happening, and then he would have passed, and all would be well. Anyway, I think all has worked out for the best, not because he's at a school more suited to him (which alot of people say to me, how patronising), but because he is performing better than any of my others were at his stage - his CAT scores suggest great GCSE results (we'll see about that), but if anything he is being pushed far harder than his siblings ever were at this stage (year 9) of their secondary schooling, as he has been identified as a strong candidate, with enormous potential. I have come to the conclusion that what will be will be. I don't wish now that I'd gone for the extensive tuition. That might be different though, if the school he was at was not so good as this one though .

[First-timer]

I do wonder at the claim that tutors are working from 5.15 to 11pm. Who exactly are they working with between 9am and 3.30pm? Aren't their tutees at school then? If it's prep time, it's a heck of a lot of prep.

[Thingsbehindthesun]

Williams’ regime is not for the fainthearted. Her pupils attend an hour’s class a week, but are also expected to do three hours of extra preparation a night from the age of eight.

My eight year old was previously just crying about completing her homework set today.This includes drawing a picture from a description and a maths sheet with rounding numbers to the nearest 1000.