Is it true that tutored children struggle afterwards?

[Yamin151]

Interesting debate about whether over-tutored children struggle afterwards. Here's an extract from SPGS's website:

"It is also important for us to be able to identify over prepared candidates who may perform well in our assessments but who are unable to sustain the required pace when they join the school."

Yamin151 and Guest55: Do you think academically selective private schools are different from grammar schools in this regard?

I don't have a wide experience as I've never worked as a teacher, but I am sure that academically selective private schools can be just as pressured. Whether in an environment of smaller class sizes means that more help is available to those children who feel pressurised may be a saving factor for the DCs in those schools, but yes, they have to maintain their place in the league tables too.......

[southbucks3]

Occasionally foolish parents will over tutor their children or/and send them to very select private preps with a reputation for ludicrously high percentage pass rates. However those same parents are usually more than happy to wave a cheque book again for tutors in the subjects the child struggles with in school.
This summer two of my eldest son's school peers have been sent off to various "camps" (code for extra tuition) following appalling end of year grades and in prep for their gcse courses. He less than generously calls them "thick -------- -------- -------" (obviously I will not name the school) in reference to their prep school. To be honest they both seem happy to be struggling along, my only real bug bear is when they are grouped with the more able boys for projects and become a nuisance with continuation work at home. I am fairly positive they will put in the extra graft a few months before gcse time that is required to get a good set of results, primarily because they will be forced to by their parents and their tutors.
However there are two boys I know from the same family that should not be in grammar school, both had the same tutor, both sat their test a week later than everyone else following illness???? One was level 3/4 one was level 4 on entry and both are struggling terribly and without further help at home to our knowledge. One is doing so badly the school have repetitively asked him to leave, but the parents refuse to play ball, he is heartbreakingly isolated, completely out of his depth and has little part to play in every day school life. His brother fares a little better, but recently had to be put on a table on his own in maths as he was copying answers from his peers, thankfully he is not as socially isolated in the playground yet.
So in my son's limited social groups, that is four children I am aware of, not a huge amount, but four too many really.
The others that have been over tutored as people suggest normally have good subjects and poor subjects but their parents support them through school either themselves or with paid tutoring in their weaker subjects.
My eldest son struggles quite a bit with French, he has a set of text books, I have a cattle prod, he will pass his gcse (just)! Did I over tutor him for the 11+? Probably, but as t transpires he got a silly high test mark, so probably didn't need it either....he is just really bad at French.

[Tolstoy]

I think the second two SB3 mentions raises an important point. Tutoring no matter how long you spend doing it does not guarantee a pass. We witness examples of that time and time again on this site and off it if you live in a 11+ area. Cheating perhaps yes but I am sure that is less rife. However if SB3 surmises correctly then this tutor was well aware that tutoring alone was not going to cut it so took steps reinforcing the fallacy of the over-tutoring argument.

The first two appear too be shirkers and you will get them in every school and personally I don't see why Grammars should be spared them just as they should have to deal with behavioural problems.

[Foreseer]

Interesting debate about whether over-tutored children struggle afterwards. Here's an extract from SPGS's website:

"It is also important for us to be able to identify over prepared candidates who may perform well in our assessments but who are unable to sustain the required pace when they join the school."

Yamin151 and Guest55: Do you think academically selective private schools are different from grammar schools in this regard?

Many top selective boarding schools accept siblings of existing pupils without passing the entrance exam, some of these kids may have SEN too. Their parents are so rich (mostly CEO, fund managers, etc) that they will pay anything to the school to help their kids to succeed. In this sense, struggled kids do not suffer much in private schools as compared to grammar school.

[Yamin151]

Interesting debate about whether over-tutored children struggle afterwards. Here's an extract from SPGS's website:

"It is also important for us to be able to identify over prepared candidates who may perform well in our assessments but who are unable to sustain the required pace when they join the school."

Yamin151 and Guest55: Do you think academically selective private schools are different from grammar schools in this regard?

Many top selective boarding schools accept siblings of existing pupils without passing the entrance exam, some of these kids may have SEN too. Their parents are so rich (mostly CEO, fund managers, etc) that they will pay anything to the school to help their kids to succeed. In this sense, struggled kids do not suffer much in private schools as compared to grammar school.

I think even Guest 55 ( ) would agree Foreseer that that is the most outrageous generalisation both about private schools and the parents who use them! Just like state schools, indie schools run the whole gamut from excellent to poor, with cul-de-sacs into better or worse academically, more or less academically rigorous, via great pastoral care, or terribly pastoral care, fantastic facilities to average facilities, rich parents to ordinary parents diverting funds with a struggle. You cannot possibly generalise.

[Guest55]

I am concluding that Foreseer's posts are best ignored.

Extrapolating from a few examples to make general statements is always a problem; and it seems a common content of these posts.

The 'mention' of SEN without realising that that an SEN categorisation includes extremely bright children is also very revealing ...

[kenyancowgirl]

Agreed. Whilst I am not entirely sure what a "struggled child" is the fact that you assume a child in a school, where the parent is flinging money around, "do not suffer", shows the vast chasm in your actual understanding of the psyche of youth, Foreseer. Coupled with, I hate to say it, a poor ability to string sentences together in your written submissions, indicates that whilst you may work in an independent school, I suspect, not as a member of the academic staff. A fact that, it has been noticed, you have been questioned on but have chosen to ignore, whilst spouting about your wide and varied experiences of education.

You are obsessed with "top" schools indicating an unhealthy obsession with league tables, I suspect, and show a complete misunderstanding of the SEN spectrum. You have couched your reference in negative terms whereas my experience is that SEN students can be amongst the brightest in the school.

Edited to say crossed with Guest...

[Yamin151]

Hear hear

[SSB80]

Hi Can anyone recommend a good 11 plus tutor in ilford or surrounding areas please? Thank you (please PM me)

[mystery]

I think not but a few mumsnetters are getting on their high horses about this. It would be interesting to hear about experiences here.

It's generalisation so it's true in some cases and not in others. Some children do struggle at grammar school. Some of those will have been tutored and some of those will not have been.

The overwhelming majority of children at grammar school in West Kent have either been tutored or done some extra work at home with parents to prepare for the test, or went to private schools that provide some preparation in class time.

Which of them struggle at a grammar school? I haven't a clue which ones. And what does struggle at grammar school mean anyhow? To me, it's someone who works very hard at all subjects, is well taught in all of them, and still performs below average for the population as a whole in all subjects at all times I don't hear about anyone like that from my child at a superselective.

I hear about one child who does incredibly badly in all class tests in all subjects. Is that child struggling? I don't know. She might be deliberately doing this, she might not be paying attention in any lesson, she might be very low ability and someone else sat the test for her on a Saturday at a test centre. I don't know.

Maybe some tests are more susceptible to huge amounts of tutoring getting a very average or less than average child to the pass mark? I don't know. I can't see this happening in the Kent test with the four subjects it covers and the necessity to pass each of them. I think there would have to be an element of cheating for tutoring to get a "genuine" struggler to the pass mark on the Kent test.

I think it's way more likely that there are children who don't pass who would make a perfectly good fist of grammar school and children who do pass who are not going to be any great shakes academically because they're just not that interested, or not hard working, or because they had an education at priimary school which did not prepare them well for the work they would encounter at secondary school.