‘There is absolutely no need for any child applying to our school to be tutored,’ said the headmistress of a prestigious London day school during the Q&A session. Relieved, I left the hall to wander around the booths in a nearby room. I was struck by the many tutoring agencies, offering advice, courses and books on how to boost your child’s chances of securing a place at an elite school. In light of the headmistress’s earlier comment, I couldn’t help but recall the famous words attributed to P.T. Barnum. ‘A sucker is born every minute.’
The majority of applicants are tutored to the hilt
Not long after, I found myself on a tour of a reputable school for possible 7+ entry for my son. As we visited the impressive sports fields, one parent asked the guide whether tutoring was recommended for the entrance exam. I nearly swallowed my tongue when the guide replied ‘It would be a good idea – yes.’ It turns out that I was the sucker. Since then, I have discovered a world of deceit and trickery. The observations below stem from my own experiences, and those of trusted friends.
- Heads of academic schools publicly claim that tutoring is unnecessary, but they know full well that the majority of applicants are tutored to the hilt.
- Many tutoring agencies offer bespoke support and advice on how to boost a child’s chances of admission. Through experience, Freedom of Information requests and well-placed contacts, the best agencies have gathered impressive intelligence about leading private schools.
- Tutoring is expensive, with experienced tutors charging well over £100 per hour for in-person teaching. This is to be added to already steep school fees, which average about £7,000 a term for day pupils and over £12,000 a term for boarders. These figures are set to increase with the imposition of VAT in January 2025.
- Tutoring begins early. A former au pair, who went on to work for a family far more affluent than mine, told me that her new employers had hired a private tutor to teach their children every day after school. The children were 5 and 7.
- Some children have one-to-one tutoring for six hours a day during school holidays, including weekends.
- Tutoring continues beyond primary school into secondary school and even university.
- In some cases, tutors complete assignments on behalf of students, who then submit them as their own for marking. This, of course, is cheating.
- Parents conceal the extent of their children’s tutoring, or lie about it altogether. It is a taboo subject.
- Parents seek medical diagnoses for their children, such as ADHD, to secure extra time and other favourable adjustments in exams.
- Some diagnoses, like ADHD, are handed out to children like Smarties, especially in the private sector where these assessments can cost thousands of pounds.
There are, no doubt, many more practices about which I am blissfully unaware. Please feel free to share them with me, in confidence. The tutoring of children is well-meaning and, if the tutor is good, enriches their education and raises their chances of admission into the finest educational establishments. Yet, I find the whole phenomenon deeply depressing.
It is not the inequality that troubles me most – that is ubiquitous and probably impossible to eliminate. Nor is it the fact that getting into selective schools in major cities is now fiercely competitive, or even the parental pretence and secrecy surrounding tutoring. What disturbs me most is the immense pressure placed on those children at a younger and younger age. They are studying more, playing less, and burdened with heavy parental expectations for years.
Last summer, I spoke to a mother whose daughter had just finished her A-levels at a prestigious London day school. She was disappointed that the daughter had ‘dropped the ball’. C, D, D, I wondered? No, her ‘failure’ was receiving an A rather than the expected A* in one subject, leaving her with A* A* A.
There is, I feel, an obsessive and unhealthy focus on academic success. Once reserved for students who struggled academically, tutoring is now rife across all abilities. In their quest for top schools and grades, parents can overlook the fact that intensive tutoring comes at a cost that is not only financial, but probably social, emotional and psychological. When it comes to our children’s education, it is easy to forget what, deep down, we all know: success and happiness in life are not defined by exam results or a school’s ranking in the league tables.
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