6th November 2015 6:00
By Blue Tutors
There has been mixed press for private tuition recently, with the heads of many independent schools warning parents against tutoring their children for school entrance exams. Despite statements made by leading independent schools, private tuition for school entrance exams has been more popular than ever before this year, with parents spending up to £5,000 on tuition. Recently, the headmaster of the independent school King’s College in Wimbledon has called tutoring students for entrance exams ‘abhorrent’. He said that parents risk crippling their children with the idea that they have not lived up to expectations.
One could reasonably respond to this comment by pointing out that schools that use entrance exams do just that – children who fail these exams and are unable to attend their preferred school are likely to feel that they have not lived up to expectations, whether their parents provide private tuition or not. As this year’s figures have shown, parents are not about to take the advice offered by schools not to tutor their children. Their priority is to give their children the best possible chance of gaining entry into a good school, and demonising them for doing so is not going to help the children taking these exams.
Whilst schools still set entrance exams, the best way to ensure that children have a good shot, is to prepare them adequately for them. The objections of many schools is that entrance exam tuition can involve drilling children with constant practice exams and rote learning. I am certainly not advocating that, and nor should any reputable tuition agency. What a good tutor will do, is familiarise children with the school entrance process so that it doesn’t seem so alien, and encourage them to get used to expressing their knowledge and ideas on paper. Whether they are taking a school entrance exam or not, children will benefit hugely from this process.