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An epidemic is spreading in the capital, with no obvious cure. Private tutors are everywhere. "It is reaching epidemic proportions in London," says Sue Fieldman of the Good Schools Guide.
Well, tell us something the parenting classes hadn't sniffed out already. The tutor boom is all around us, fed by a mixture of parental anxiety, a flood of unemployed graduates looking for work and an arms race over grades and university entrance.
The scale of it was brought home to me by a friend whose children range from age six to 18 - and each child is having extra lessons in something. She even has a timetable of tutorials on her kitchen fridge to keep track of the routine.
This week it was estimated that half of all London children have received some form of private lesson, with big increases seen at primary school level.
As half-term approaches with the spring exam season just behind it, families are rushing to register their clans for extra holiday lessons: not so much half-term as extra-term. How did tutor-frenzy conquer the capital?
I remember, in my sixth form, one girl whose family booked her an English tutor because they weren't happy with her progress.
The rest of us curled our lips. Tutoring was a sign of weakness, or an inability to spend time on Jane Austen or advanced calculus by yourself. Tutorial colleges which prepped A-level failures for another go at Bristol or York were seen as the last resorts of the desperate with dosh. No longer. The disparity in results between good schools and bad, a paucity of places in the best state-sector schools and the rise of a "super league" of top London private day schools guarantees that pupils and parents are heading for extra tuition at an exponential rate.
Parents are so worried that they will spend free Saturdays, evenings and good money on stuffing yet more learning into their young. I'd imagined that this was largely about top private schools and their entrance exams. Looking over a verbal reasoning test for 11-year-olds, it occurred to me that I might need tutoring myself to get to grips with it.
But when I Google a fine state school reachable from north London, the first thing that pops up is a welter of offers to tutor applicants trying to get in. Tutorial colleges spring up like edu-locusts feeding off our oversubscribed schools.
One longstanding teacher at Highgate School dismisses much of this. "Teachers at the best schools see so many children that they can immediately tell who has been pushed through tutoring and who is naturally bright," he says. "It only makes a difference at the margins."
But the margins are where the anxious classes dwell when it comes to calculations about schools and opportunity. We fret about the "I think it can make a difference" at the margins but there's sleight of hand here. Tutoring won't make your average child into an Oxbridge candidate however long you do it.
The margins are also where most of the gap between A and A* is, knowing our university admissions system is more strictly credentialist than ever.
Will Orr-Ewing, of Keystone Tutors in Chelsea, tells me that he "takes children whose needs are not being met in the classroom: most of our families, contrary to assumptions, have been referred to us by schools."
Orr-Ewing, a Harrow and Oriel man, emphasises that "we're trying to link up with the Government's Gifted and Talented scheme and we work with a lot of children who, because of learning, behavioural or attention difficulties, aren't doing well."
He has 150 families on the agency's books: "Of course we work also with extremely fast learners who need to be stretched." The going rate is £40-45 per hour.
He tells me there is a vogue for the super-rich to hire a tutor for an entire year and take them around the world to polish up their offspring's knowledge.
One recent social change is that families are less likely to be coy about seeking out extra lessons. The revelation that the Blairs had engaged a leading history master at Westminster to tutor their boys for university entrance caused a brief stir - but hardly surprised anyone.
They were simply doing what a lot of professional parents using state education take for granted: running a private top-up scheme. Primary schools such as St Mary Abbots in Kensington, where David Cameron and Michael Gove send their children, are successful, but as one parent says: "A lot of extra tutoring does go on outside school. Among better-off families, you're probably the exception if you don't do it." Established local tutors also cite waiting lists of up to three years for families wanting help.
Rachel Johnson, the journalist who broke the story of the Blairs' private tuition, takes a more stringent view of the effects of tutoring on the education system. "I have friends with children aimed at Oxbridge since the cradle and at top London schools. They're relentlessly tutored on top of that. Parents think it's their duty to supplement even a world-class education. It's crazy."
She also touches on the effect on the untutored. "The gap in attainment between a child who is privately educated and tutored and anyone else is becoming unbridgeable. It really is socially iniquitous."
But as products of the meritocratic late Eighties, we wonder what happened to the useful idea that a pupil - particularly an older teenager - should learn to push themselves, as well as be pushed.
A relative of mine complained that she wasn't being stretched in sixth form and needed extra attention. "Have you tried the library?" was the curt reply.
Schools and universities need to sort the tutored sheep from the self-starting goats. It isn't only a phenomenon for the wealthy, though. Reading the noticeboard in my local Tesco recently, the proliferation of cards offering help with maths and English is noticeable among the ads for second-hand buggies and baby-sitters.
Surely it is a sign of a more motivated (and more worried) Britain, and one in which parents are less likely to feel self-conscious about being seen to steal an advantage, if they can help their child get ahead. All's fair in the education wars. But heaven help the rest.
Tutoring tips
* Ask about the experience of the tutor: can he/she place your child in context? Has he/she received any training/preparation? Not all graduates are natural teachers: go with your instinct.
* Ask how long the tutor will be around for: is he/she just tutoring for a bit of extra cash or are committed to seeing a pupil through to the big exam/audition/interview?
* Be as specific as possible about what you want. Orr-Ewing says: "Don't say just 'Maths 11+' but a particular topic (fractions into decimals, for instance) or problem (time management, showing one's working)". Set goals, and ask how the tutor or agency is going to monitor these.
* Think about the relationship between child and tutor - are they going to look forward to these sessions, or see them as another chore?
* In the state sector, check out the local Gifted and Talented co-ordinator - the Government is trying to encourage more help for bright children.
Reader views (3)
Having read your article "The tutor trap"(ES,22.01.2010), I am confused by your message.
I read the whole article, completely agreeing to everything, as it more or less mirrored my feelings of the whole tutorial/coaching culture that seems to have gripped everyone. I am a mother of of two (7 and 3), my daughter (who just turned 7) gave a couple of entrance exams to private schools. Although, my daughter goes to a prep school, which is excellent in giving children the right balance of learning and activities to support their developing years, I was shocked to learn that over 90% of her classmates were receiving private tutions!! Although, this is strongly discouraged by the school (as well as the other private prep schools within the vicinity). For an instant I doubted my own belief of anti-tutoring and I have fought all the way in standing by my decision that tutoring a child of 5-6 does not serve any purpose, and could have a quite an opposite effect to the child, as they start viewing basic education as a chore, and easily tire of it.
Getting back on the subject, I was really surprised, having read the article with almost a sense of triumph, to see a window within the same page headlined "Tutoring Tips" To me this completely contradicts your views, which although are not starkly spelt out, but point to the obvious. Perhaps, you could shed some light on this. I am asking you this as I was hoping to show the article to both my children's schools
- Seema Vyas, London, England, 03/02/2010 14:39
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Why is getting extra tutoring for your child a bad thing?
Parents in China and Korea pay for tutors for their children for almost every subject. I really don't understand why wanting your child to succeed and, if you've got the money, paying for extra help is something that we should worry about.
This article is absolutely ridiculous 'quick we must stop this menace in society, our children are getting extra help and therefore receiving a better education!'
- Ruth, Liverpool, 22/01/2010 18:30
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Why do you use terms like 'epidemic?' I am a tutor and I am not a disease, just someone who is responding to the anxiety of parents who simply want to get their children into the better schools, or who have recognized that their children's school is failing them.
The rise in private tutoring is a direct result of the destruction of the Grammar School system - with so few GS, parents are desperate to get their kids a place. It's a vicious circle, too - a child will be intensively tutored to make the grade, then will require support until GCSE and often beyond.
Private schools offer an option to those who can afford it, but even here affordable places have been cut down because of the lack of GS - the scholarships which used once to be given to attract the brightest, are now often handed out simply to stop brighter ones from trying for GS.
- Liz, London, UK, 22/01/2010 16:39
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