Guest55 wrote:
Surterfish - managing a class of 30 and enabling all to achieve at least expected progress is 'the day job' of many teachers and it is achieved very successfully. One-to-one support is always available free at lunchtimes.
It is very sad that some students don't even talk to teachers about additional help. It is actually harmful if tutors do homework and, my big bugbear, when they give them the most recent past paper that a school might want to use for a mock. Masking difficulties like this actually stops a teacher doing their job effectively.
My big plea would be - talk to school first before getting a tutor and ensure that tutor is actually a qualified teacher and that they are up to speed on the changes. Ask them not to do homework or use recent papers with the student until after any mocks.
Don't get me wrong. I was not advocating that parents should employ private tutors or defending those who do so. I was just trying to give an explanation of why I thought some parents of able children in good schools still did so because yourself and anotherdad both seemed to be puzzled by it. I think its a mentality of believing that every little extra will help increase their child's grade, even though as you explained in reality it can sometimes be counterproductive.
As an aside, you mentioned that tutors should not 'do' homework. (presumably you meant help with homework rather than literally 'do it' for the child?). Does the same apply to parents in your view? We don't use any tutors but we do sometimes try to help with DS's homework ourselves when he gets stuck or try to explain a concept he doesn't understand. Is that wrong of us though?