Hi All,

My 9 year old daughter (10) in December has a tutor who tutors her once a week. We pay £35 a lesson and although the tutor his highly recommend, my daughter seems to forget what she’s learnt and I’m not sure if it’s just her age or do we need more lessons.

I spend an hour a day with her on her maths and I feel she is doing great, it’s just her English that I am really worried about as I have never been great at that subject. I’ve found some online English tutors for £25 and was wondering what your thoughts were of teaching English online instead of one on one. I was also wondering what your thoughts were on, on the amount of lessons a child of her age should be doing per week. Thank you.

Once a week is more than enough. A 9 year old should be out having fun

If she still can't keep up with school with once a week tutoring she really shouldn't be doing the 11+ let her be a kid

I agree, one hour a week is plenty. I’m not sure that online tutoring is that great. The main benefit of a tutor is that they can talk a child through problems and see what the sticking points are. A good tutor can try different ways around these points and clear up misconceptions.

What about school? Have you talked to her teacher about her English? Many schools offer intervention groups. I worked for years teaching one to one or small group interventions and supporting in class.

9years as in year 4? I think it all depends on her aptitude/ attainment level, how academic her school is and competition level of grammar you aim for. Everything needs to be orchestrated towards maximum outcome within the limited time. Therefore it is pointless to draw a conclusion that more hours /money spent on tutoring is better outcome. my DD’s school is very academic and carried a lot of weight. This means less stress, less tutoring although I had one hour a week for English only at £25.00 during her Year 5.

Hi. I’m sure to be shot down for this reply but this is my perspective and experience on the amount of work needed, and I hope it helps some parents who find themselves in a similar position. In short I think a very able child does not need to have hours and hours of tutoring/practice at home.

I have 3 DC. 1st DC is a very able child but not outstanding. 11+ and grammar school was not even on the radar. DC 1 is at a ‘good’ non selective state school. Is top sets and is doing very well. I’m sure DC 1 would not have been ‘top set’ at a grammar school and would have found it very disheartening and would have struggled keeping up. No worries then with the choice made.

DC 2 and 3 are twins. Twin 1 has ‘exceeded’ at everything all the way through primary. Twin 2, bright but is at ‘expected’ level. The subject of 11+ came up for twin 1 in March of this year, I found this forum and thought ‘good grief’. I had no idea of the amount of preparation some children have.

I did not want DCs 1 and 3 to think that I was favouring twin 1 in any way (be that attention or financially) so I had to keep the preparation for twin 1 very low key.

So I bought a couple of the 10 minute test books and a couple of the 45 minute ‘test paper’ packs. Twin 1 found some of the maths was beyond what they had learned in yr 5, so that was ignored. Useful stuff was seeing NVR and VR questions and also how to fill out multiple choice questions quickly. This forum is an excellent resource for last minute prep!

Anyway the outcome after doing a few of the 10 minute tests and 2 and a half of the MCQ test papers was that twin 1 passed with a good score.

This post is not intended to be boastful in anyway but more to address the hysteria created with people thinking that lots and lots of tutoring and going to a grammar school is the only way to succeed.

Ironically for twin 1 it’s all down to distance from the catchment school. But I know that whatever schools my twins end up at, as long as they are happy, feel safe and continue to live learning they will do well.

Ok- the flak jacket is on now !

My DD has recently passed, so thought I'd share what we did.

We tried with a one-on-one tutor and had about 20 sessions, probably about 15 of those were useful as my daughter got overwhelmed and can get anxious. We decided to just focus on doing it ourselves and worked through the 10 minute test papers from CGP. Towards the end I bought there normal books but we just used bits she needed to work on. We then did 3 of the cgp mock papers timed and she found those useful. We never did more than an hour a week, generally just did 3*10 minute papers. We focused on reading to her, doing some spellings, antonyms etc.
We're in Glos and it's CEM. I realise some areas are much more competitive etc

I think it depends on what area you're in (as the test formats are different depending on region), what the school does, what you do at home etc.

If your concern is English, I think this (in my experience) is taught in Year 5 - so if your DD is at the start of Yr 5 now, she'll get better at that as you go through the academic year. Certainly in my area (CEM) English is about comprehension and vocabulary - and the best thing for that is reading. Reading. And more reading. Do it together, ask questions about the text, make a note of the tricky / unfamiliar words.

I agree that 1 hour per week is enough for lessons - follow that up with homework, a couple of the 10 min tests and then lots of "learn through play" type activities - words searches, cross words, play Scrabble as a family, games like Articulate, Bananagrams etc. And reading. Have I mentioned reading ?

My absolute top tip is to nurture confidence - if your DD thinks she's doing well, she'll feel 100% more positive about it than giving her lots of exercises that overwhelm her or cause her anxiety. Remember the aim is to be at the required standard by September of Yr 6 when they take the tests. Expecting them to achieve say 90% on an assessment paper a year earlier (I was guilty of trying an assessment paper at the start of Yr 5) is not the right way to go about it. Good luck!

I think the main thing to do in year 5 is to foster a love of reading. Encourage reading fiction and non-fiction to increase vocabulary. Also First News or National Geographic Kids are two that we got a subscription for our child.
In our experience we thought any tutoring was too much in Year 4 and while we started with a tutor in the October of Year 5 it was too much and too intense with the Tutor setting homework of 40 or 50 questions each week and reminding us how our child was behind others she tutored - some since they were 7 or 8! So we ended that and went to the well-known high street tutor company.
In our experience this worked well as the 11 plus session (we didnt bother with the other stuff offered) was fairly relaxed and had the sociable group element.
By about May we were doing a 10 minute Bond test a couple of times a week as well and that increased to ten minutes a day in the summer with nothing at all while we went on holiday for two weeks.
I think encourage reading, wait till Year Five, do not use words such as pass and fail - stress to your child that they just need to do their best and it really isnt the end of the world if they dont get into grammar school as they will do well in any school with encouragement and support.
Lastly I do think if a child needs excessive tutoring to pass the 11 plus they will struggle in grammar school.