Finding a Middle Path: Summer Tuition (Part 4)

My Family Care asks Oliver: Children spend many months of the year in the classroom but some parents feel they need extra tuition during the holidays. Do children need the tuition and do they benefit from the extra help? What can parents be doing at home to make things more educational but still fun?

It's quite a weighty topic and there are lots of contrarian views already out there. I'm no expert, but I am writing this as a parent of 3 children in Years 1 and 2, living in London. Some of what follows is written as a parent, and to some degree as a child of parents who achieved only 'O' Levels, as well as someone who started and runs their own business.

The ideal for our children

By this I mean that I want their childhoods to be care free and unpressurised. Summer holidays to be spent away from classrooms and TV screens, with as much time outside as possible. Childhoods are precious. We have our whole lives to work in pressured, structured environments and - once in the rat race, take any parents word for it - it's pretty difficult to escape it. So, for the record, I am a fan of travelling and experiences and a general delay to "real life" for as long as possible.

Life skills and confidence

It goes by remarkably quickly; my eldest daughter is about to turn 8, where did that come from? What will this mean in another 4 or 5 years? If our job as parents is to ensure that our children have the life skills and confidence to deal with whatever the world throws at them, tutoring is some way down the priority list. Indeed, if I had one skill more than any other to instil in my children it would be 'confidence in themselves'. It's the thing that will mean more in the long run than possibly anything else. If you want to see what interesting challenges life can throw at you, try starting a business from scratch and see the full range of challenges that face you.

Market conditions

In London, or any large urban environment, there are simply too many children and too few schools. In some cases there are 500 applications for 50 places at the best schools, it's nuts! Naturally every parent wants the best for their children and therefore if academic achievement is something that is a judgment factor for getting into a better school, what parent wouldn't spend some additional time and money influencing that outcome? After all, isn't that going to mean a better education, experience and tilt at life for my child? How else do schools choose which students to take, when they themselves are judged by league tables?

Tutoring is the result of the market conditions. But does that make it the right thing to do?

Pressure on children

There is so much pressure on children already today, to achieve, succeed and compare with the Jones' next door. Just look at the number of teenagers and young people with depression (please check out the great work that the Charlie Waller Memorial Trust does). How do our children deal with failure and the adversities that life is going to throw at them? Exerting such pressure on our children feels all wrong.

Homework, tutoring and reading with your children

The summer holidays are very long (historically so the children could help bring in the harvest). Ask any teacher and they will say that children take some steps backwards academically over the summer. Should you read with your children and work through some books, maths or otherwise with them? Of course you should. We are heading to France for the summer and I am trying to find someone locally that can do a few French lessons as part of the experience. But is this tutoring? I don't think so.

Tutoring does have a place, however. My youngest daughter really struggles with maths and no matter how slowly or calmly I try to explain things, I am clearly not explaining it in a way that makes sense to her (and trust me I have tried). I would also say that her school isn't doing a great job either. So I have enlisted some expert help. Does this count as tutoring? Yes. Will it help build her confidence to be on a level playing field with her peers? Yes.

What summer should be about

So, in summary, I am as guilty as any parent who has used tutors, as I have too. But is this helping a child that is struggling? Yes. Will I be doing some academic work with them over the summer holidays? Yes. But I hope that if I asked the children for their memories of their summer holidays, they will tell me that it was filled with sun, time outdoors, climbing trees, driving their parents and grandparents mad, not going to bed on time, swimming, playing games, eating fruit from trees and basically doing anything other than spending time in a classroom.

Oliver Black, Business Owner, Father of Three