Industry | 2009.10.11
Tutor frenzy in race for top school places
Private tutors are now dedicating themselves to ensuring that children win a grammar school place. The result is a widening class divide and some children studying for up to six hours a day
It is 5am. In Billericay, Essex, a 10-year-old girl opens the door of her mother\'s car and walks up to the front door of a detached house. Stephanie Williams, 26, is waiting to greet her.
The pair are about to embark on a two-hour tutoring session that is a part of an intensive 18-month programme. There is one aim: that next month the girl will score a mark on her 11-plus exam high enough to win her a coveted place at one of Essex\'s grammar schools.
The reason that they are starting so early is because it is the only time Williams can fit the girl in. She has been so inundated with requests from parents desperate for their children to gain entry into a selective school that she is holding two sessions before school and three after. That means that she starts coaching at 5am and finishes at 9pm. Williams, who runs the S6 Tutoring Academy, also administers a mock exam for 40 children once a week, works through the weekend – and boasts a 100% success rate.
Perhaps that is why parents are lining up to pay £100 a session and up to £5,000 a year for her coaching. "I\'m booked up until the end of 2011," said Williams, who at 26 earns more than the headteacher at her old school. One couple have re-mortgaged their house to afford the tuition and one mother has three jobs. And it is not just in Essex.
All over the country, parents are pouring thousands of pounds into private tutoring in a desperate attempt to help their children secure a place at one of the 164 grammar schools in England and 69 in Northern Ireland. The pressure has become even more intense because of the economic downturn, which has driven parents away from the private sector. For many, a few thousand pounds to secure a "free" place at a selective school – with a highly academic intake – is worth it.
After all, many grammar schools score highly in league tables and send large numbers of pupils to good universities. Critics argue that the success is not a result of the quality of education but the fact that the schools socially select pupils by creaming off those who are best prepared for the tough academic tests.
Whatever the reason, competition is now so fierce that children often need to score in excess of 90% in entrance exams to have any chance of winning a place. Some areas have had a 50% jump in applicants, with an increasing number of parents prepared to drive long distances and cross county borders in search of a selective school. Those facing the highest levels of interest have increased the bar by setting more exam questions and giving pupils a shorter time period.
In the most extreme cases, 20 children or more are battling for each place – and increasingly, private tuition is seen as the difference between a pass and a fail.
That is certainly the feeling among some of the parents in Billericay who have turned to Williams for help.
As the sun disappeared on Friday afternoon, they each drove their children to a local school where they would sit one of their regular "mock 11-plus exams" set by the tutor. Among them were Sabrina Dizdar, Navneet Mohan, Molly Bailey and Aiden Jackson. The 10-year-olds say they desperately want to win a precious place at one of the county\'s grammar schools and each are spending two hours a day or more preparing.
Navneet says she wants to be a barrister, Sabrina a doctor and Molly a vet. Their parents believe that passing the 11-plus could be first step towards fulfilling those ambitions.
"I don\'t feel ashamed about what I am doing," said Rebecca Bailey, 39. "I am doing the best for my child, helping her strive towards her dreams. At the moment she wants to be a vet and I want to help her achieve that."
Bailey said she had been pro-comprehensives and that her eldest daughter, Jessica, now 20, had attended the local one. "She didn\'t do badly, but she told me things that frightened me," she said . "About how teachers had no control and could not discipline children. It was Jessica who said I should look at a grammar school for Molly and that is what changed my outlook because she had experienced the local school."
As it happened, Molly was also keen. In fact the schoolgirl – who earns some money herself from modelling – approached her mother and said: "Mummy, I\'ll pay for the exam."
Laughing as she remembered her daughter\'s comment, Bailey said that, as a single mother, private education was a little too expensive. But if Molly did not pass the 11-plus she had found a way to make it possible through savings and by selling some items, including her car.
Many of the parents admitted that the pressure of revising had at times concerned them. Alexandra Dizdar said her daughter was doing two-and-a-half to three hours\' preparation a day, while Williams said those who had started very late could do six hours a day. "Once it is over, I think Sabrina will be relieved to have her life back," said Dizdar, who insisted that it was worth it.
Aiden is already in a private primary school. His mother, Katie Jackson, said: "The work has stepped up at school, he has musical exams, a sporting competition and the tutoring, so sometimes I think it is too much. But then I think it is just a few more weeks."
Aiden will take the 11-plus but even if he passes he may stay in the private sector, as Jackson believes he would get more rounded opportunities. But she still thinks the tutoring is worth the money as it has built his confidence in the classroom and at home. The story of this group of parents in Essex is one that can be heard across the country.
According to research by the Sutton Trust, 43% of young people in London have received private tuition in some form during their school years, up from 36% in 2005. Meanwhile, there has been a jump from 18% to 22% across the country. James Turner, director of policy at the trust, described the shift as an "arms race in social mobility", with each set of parents trying to do a little better than their peers. But he warned that the trend was deepening the divide between the "haves" and the "have-nots".
"In financial terms, private tuition makes sense on a number of levels," said Turner. "Parents may be weighing up thousands of pounds in private school fees against hundreds in tuition. And if you compare that to moving into a house in the catchment area of a good comprehensive, that is more expensive as well."
Tuition was an obvious way for parents to buy an advantage for their children, added Turner. And that is exactly what they are doing.
A survey by the website www.elevenplusexams.co.uk, which provides reams of information for parents, found that more than six out of 10 believed such coaching enhanced their children\'s chance of passing the 11-plus, with over a third starting the sessions more than a year before the exam.
Parents of five-year-olds have rung the National Grammar Schools Association (NGSA) to ask when they should start tutoring arrangements. "It is not just weeks before the 11-plus that parents are thinking about this, it is years," said Jenny Jones a former grammar school head and secretary of the association. The risk, she added, was that children passed the exams because they had been drilled to do so and then could not cope once they entered the school.
Fiona Millar, chair of Comprehensive Futures that campaigns against selective education, said she was "amazed" by the stories she heard about the way parents behaved. "It has got out of control," she said. "What sort of kids have to be up at five in the morning to be tutored? It is tragic. I think there are issues about pupils\' well-being. I have heard of tutors for children who are pre-primary. It has become a sort of panic among parents."
Millar said parents were driven by the fact they faced an "awful alternative". In areas where grammar schools took the brightest pupils, other schools suffered from deflated results. The obvious solution, according to Millar, was to ban the 11-plus. "You can\'t make the argument that grammar schools are ladders up for the working classes if who gets into them is determined by the amount of tuition their parents can afford," she said.
Others argued that children felt under pressure because they knew their parents had spent so much money on tutors. One primary school teacher from Kent, which has an 11-plus system and multiple grammar schools, said the stress on children was so high that in the weeks leading up to the exam and immediately afterwards, some suffered sleep problems, became weepy and aggressive, or fell ill. There was also bullying and name calling, as children felt the strain of the "dog-eat-dog attitude".
Becky Matthews – a parent in Kent who has campaigned against the "Kent-test" – said that the competitive culture was propagated throughout Kent. She described how the shelves of the W H Smith in Maidstone were lined with books explaining how to pass the test, while gift shops were stocking cards that read: "Well Done! You\'ve passed the 11-plus."
And experts say the credit crunch is to blame for the increased competition.
For Ilesh Kotecha, the father who set up elevenplusexams.co.uk, it is a "no-brainer". He points to what he calls the "asymmetric risk-rewards". "Let\'s take the case of a north London parent. Senior independent school fees are approximately £15,000 a year per child. Pre-tax, assuming a higher rate tax, that is £25,000 per year. Over seven years, that can be £175,000 pre-tax for secondary education per child, which for three children could exceed half a million," he said. In a time of job insecurity, parents became nervous about committing so much money.
"Enter the free grammar school," added Kotecha. "Home tuition material for the preparation for exams can cost between £250 and £600 and engaging a private tutor could be around £3,000 a year. For some parents spending around £3,000 to potentially off-set £175,000 is a no-brainer."
Even if the child failed, the training could ensure they scored highly in a private school entrance exam and received a bursary that reduced the fee, added Kotecha, who said his site had been inundated with enquiries about tutors in recent months. "What was a cottage industry of retired teachers has grown into a lucrative unregulated sector. The cold hard fact is that tutoring makes an appreciable difference in your child\'s prospects, and in many of the schools almost all successful candidates will have been coached." Kotecha explained that there were techniques that could help pupils master the exams.
Other experts estimate that the 11-plus private tutoring industry is worth hundreds of millions of pounds. It is clear that tutors can charge large amounts, ranging from £20-£30 an hour in lower demand areas, to more than £50 an hour in hotspots such as London. An individual can easily earn in excess of £100,000 – even without prior teaching experience – while those who set up their own companies are already turning into tutor-millionaires.
While some, like Williams, take every child they can fit into their schedule and teach them to understand subjects rather than just pass the test, others are less ethical. The Observer was told of some tutors who tested children before taking them on so that they could maintain artificially high success rates.
After all, there is a big opportunity for companies to cash in on what is becoming an obsession for some parents: the desire to secure a place in a selective state school for their child.
Kotecha\'s website is a sign of just how concerned parents are. He set it up as a private resource for his son to help him practise for the entry exam into a local grammar school.
Before Kotecha realised what was happening, the website was receiving 500 hits a day. When he sent out a note saying that he was shutting it down he received almost 1,000 emails asking him not to. Five years, on the site receives a quarter of a million unique visitors a year – mainly parents from the two highest socio-economic groups.
Those most interested are the ones living in or close to areas such as Kent, Essex and Lincolnshire that still have the 11-plus and a high concentration of grammar schools. But elsewhere there is also a battle raging to win places in individual grammar school that set their own entrance exams. For Kotecha, the New Labour mantra of "education, education, education" has warped into "postcode lottery, private tutors, fees".
Others said that the spurt in demand was driven by dissatisfaction with comprehensive schools. "The question must be asked: why are these parents driven by hook or by crook to get their children into a grammar school?" said Robert McCartney, the QC who chairs the NGSA.
"Because they offer an education that is worthwhile and because of the failure of many comprehensives."
Back in Billericay, Williams agreed that parents had been turned off by what they considered the poor state of comprehensive education that failed to challenge their children. If pupils came under pressure while studying for the 11-plus, then it was an important lesson, she added: "Because there is pressure in the real world."
In these final weeks before the exam, Williams\' pupils will be practising for a minimum of two hours a day and a maximum of six: "I am blunt with parents. I tell them this is the most challenging exam their child will do – because it is the only exam they will never be able to resit."
Williams, who tutors for 50 hours a week, said there was a culture of secrecy about tutoring. "I have seen parents lie to other parents about it and deny they have had a tutor. They won\'t pass my details on to other parents in the school. It is bizarre."
Williams, who says she "loves" her work, describes tutoring as the best job she has ever had.
The most fulfilling day is national-offer day in March, when her pupils get their results and find out (always, so far) that they have secured a place at a grammar school.
Others, opposed to selective education, brand it "national rejection day": when the vast majority of those who took the 11-plus are told they have failed.
One thing is clear: the issue that stirs up such a passionate debate is also one that is creating a thriving industry for private tutors up and down the country.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009[...]-schools-tuition-private-tutor
