are schools tracking tuition time for entry? Post Reply

[worriedmum2]

Hello NappyValleyNetters
I heard a scary rumour last week and I wanted to ask if anyone can confirm/deny it.

In a schoolyard chat about school entrance exams one mum told me that she heard some private schools are asking parents how many hours of tuition they're little ones are receiving so they can "weight" their exam results accordingly. Obviously an A with 10hours of coaching might be worth a B with none.

As the mother of a daughter who will have to be coached within an inch of her life to even be allowed in this was a bit worrying.

So I have two questions:

1) does anyone know if this is true?
2) if it is do you think it is best to lie on the form? I suppose they could ask the child but if they're "briefed" then that shouldn't matter

Can anyone cast any light on this?

Thank you

WM

[ladyofacertainage]

If you are going to tutor your child "to an inch of her life" then I think you should be worried, I know many children who were tutored hard to get into a "good" school, but then need to be tutored all their school life just to keep up. PLEASE consider your child's happiness and choose a school which suits their individual needs above A* results. The secondary schools have long realised that many heavily tutored children get into their schools and then struggle to keep up, so maybe they are right to check who has had lots of tutoring. A small amount to help with a particular problem area or boost their confidence is fine, but more than that I don't think is a good idea.

[Mama]

Hello,

My children are far from secondary school entry but I wanted to ask on this subject: How are they going to benchmark this tuition thing? Some schools dedicate more time and effort than others to prepare their students, and others do not prepare them at all ( like state as I understand it). Are they going to build a tremendously sophisticated table where they can gauge grades according to school the student comes from, hours and type of tutoring, and finally grades attained? I find it difficult to believe this would lead to an accurate objective result. I don t know anything about this new trend though, and maybe they have it all worked out already.