16th October 2015 1:00
By Blue Tutors
The former master of Wellington College has recently claimed that the most profound benefit of private education for students is not exam grades, but the soft skills they pick up. He claimed that private schools foster creativity, teamwork empathy, resilience and honesty, skills which serve students well in both their careers and their personal lives. According to Dr Seldon, who is now vice-chancellor of the private University of Buckingham, state schools focus on exam grades to the detriment of fostering soft skills which are essential for pupils to get on in life. For parents whose children attend state schools, is private tuition the way to boost their children’s soft skills?
Private tuition is generally viewed as a way to ensure that students get the grades they need in their subjects in order to take the A levels they want to study, and get into the universities of their choice. As such, tutors are primarily viewed as a means to boost students’ chances of good grades where their schools cannot guarantee the best results. But can private tutors offer something else besides? Parents requesting tutors are increasingly asking for tutors with ‘life experience’, ‘a good sense of humour’ and ‘confidence’, personal qualities which suggest that parents are now not just after boosting their children’s grades, but also giving them some of those soft skills that Dr Seldon is advocating.
Aside from helping their students to improve their exam technique and filling in the gaps in their knowledge, private tutors are a social resource – someone with whom students can converse and pick up life skills and tips. One-one tuition affords students the opportunity to have the full attention of their tutor, enabling them to ask questions, develop their arguments and ideas in conversation, and ask tutors about their own life experiences. Most tutors will bring their own personal philosophies and experiences to their lessons, meaning that their students are exposed to new ideas and are inspired by their tutor’s confidence and approach not just to their subjects, but to life in general. With parents beginning to ask for more than subject help from their children’s tutors, private tuition could become a way to boost soft skills.