Why selective school kids need tutors? (1 Viewer)

[tommykins]

Re: Really? This is ridiculous.

snip

lol k screenshot us ur uai when u get it then.

 

[killthechicken]

Re: Really? This is ridiculous.

shut the fuck up you dumbcunt asian who goes to fort street

there are some mad gangas from there but

 

[4025808]

Ryde is a shit selective school though. I also was a reserve student for Ryde and I managed to perform quite well, I guess.

yeah well good thing is that I'm leaving though... since it is shit compared to other schools, not just academic wise, but the lack of opportunities available for senior students to succeed in HSC imo...

 

[1st in Business]

everyone wants to maximise their atar. why settle for second best? unless you're confident of a 99.95 , you can do better.

 

[GravezDigger]

I don't think tutoring is nessecary at all. It is simply a way to force a student to dedicate more time and effort to work and thus perhaps increasing their scores. If a student was self motivated, he can essentially self teach every single subject except 4U maths, about 6 months ahead of the school's schedule. That is essentially what I did, finishing the chem and phys course for my school midway through Term2. This then gave me the ability to do questions and practice papers for the remainder of the year. I think I did relatively alright with an ATAR of 99.5 (Hey, I was not that great at maths. I got so far in maths only because of the amount of practice that I did)

 

[anguyenh]

The only thing tutoring taught me during my primary school life was that long blocks of learning were boring, truancy was taken lightly and filling out the beginning of computer-read tests were extremely boring. Basically, a complete waste of money since I always finished my tutoring centre's books by copying down the teacher's answers... The only subject I really did myself was Maths - the only subject I found fun... In school my teacher was very good, patient and kind (in my opinion) but I found the work she gave the class on Maths were too simple and I always finished them with ease (I failed to get into OC so I was in the class below it).

From Year 7-10 (and continuing to Year 12) I've had Mathematics Group tutoring at one of the more "prominent" tutoring centres (not mentioning names) and I can say it's helped me a lot in Maths. Just because students get into a selective school does not mean they are guaranteed a high-quality education with teachers that can teach well and/or are willing to help their students... After my Year 7 teacher, I had the same teacher for Years 8-10. He was close to retirement, extremely boring and taught the most un-updated methods for solving Maths questions. Along with refusing to do any work and/or listening in class, the only reason I was able to score good marks was entirely based on... you guessed it - tutoring!

Previous discussions about the "academic pressure" of being behind the other students in the class is entirely true too. Imagine if the class was beginning to learn algebra or right-angled trigonometry and you were struggling, while your friends and the rest of the class was struggling with circle geometry/exponentials or whatever at tutoring.

But then again, it is "common" and "expected" that selective kids go tutoring - it's just a general norm and stereotype that is true. Whether it helps or not is entirely up to the student themself.

TL;DR - Tutoring is and always has been the only thing that has given me "access" to "challenging" Maths - studying ahead, using methods that are simpler and easier to understand than school methods that greatly help me. As a selective student who has had tutoring since Grade 1, if I didn't have mathematics tutoring, i'd be doomed for maths.

 

[nerdasdasd]

. Tutoring is and always has been the only thing that has given me "access" to "challenging" Maths - studying ahead, using methods that are simpler and easier to understand than school methods that greatly help me. As a selective student who has had tutoring since Grade 1, if I didn't have mathematics tutoring, i'd be doomed for maths.

Couldn't you learn that from books, e.g. cambridge, fitzpatrick. The teachers learnt their information from somewhere? Where do you think this was? textbooks.

 

[such_such]

Tutors aren't necessary, they're like a trend now. A fashion accessory.

And plus, some teachers in selective schools aren't really good and they could tell you wrong info, which is why a tutor is there to guide you. They're not super teachers you now. Selective schools only provide a challenging atmosphere, where people of similar 'intelligence' can come together and discuss ideas.

I agree maybe some people don't 'deserve' to be there, or rather, the atmosphere doesn't suit them. But no one can help that.

 

[kazemagic]

if teachers cant help you, you should be able to study textbooks yourself. my teachers taught me NOTHING throughout the year. it was even harder for religion, which was compulsory, where my teacher was crap and we had no textbook. But i still did really well. In short, I think tutoring is an unfair advantage, learning something twice for those that can afford it.

when I went to my new selective school orientation day earlier this year, I think I was the only one out of 15 students that did not already attend selective schools (and presumably they were tutored, because most students at selective schools are?). 5 were from penrith, 4 were from girra etc. If you really need tutoring before senior year 11 and 12 years, you dont deserve to be at a selective school.

nice hatred for tutored kids

 

[Kurosaki]

if teachers cant help you, you should be able to study textbooks yourself. my teachers taught me NOTHING throughout the year. it was even harder for religion, which was compulsory, where my teacher was crap and we had no textbook. But i still did really well. In short, I think tutoring is an unfair advantage, learning something twice for those that can afford it.

when I went to my new selective school orientation day earlier this year, I think I was the only one out of 15 students that did not already attend selective schools (and presumably they were tutored, because most students at selective schools are?). 5 were from penrith, 4 were from girra etc. If you really need tutoring before senior year 11 and 12 years, you dont deserve to be at a selective school.

There will never be a level playing field, and tutoring is no substitute for ur own initiative lol. By this I mean if kids are failing parents will pay for a tutor thus creating an uneven playing field. This causes them to ace their tests, people notice, start panicking about losing and get their own tutors. Cycle continues.

 

[Kurosaki]

thats what i meant, if people are failing they should take their own initiative to teach themselves

They should, but they dont, end of story. And sometimes it's useful to have someone proofread ur essay for u, who has a greater understanding of the course content etc etc, standard arguments for tutors. Teachers can't be there all the time to pick u up, they have tons of classes? May I ask what selective school you are moving to? Merry Christmas everyone

 

[clover_]

to increase chances of doing well? like any other non-selective school student who gets tutoring. teachers in some selective school teach so that they assume the class knows the content from tutoring and focus on harder stuff which means that people that don't get tutoring will end up doing so

 

[oasfree]

It's been a couple of years since I started this thread. So some update would benefit readers. My nice has now completed HSC and got 97.x and got on the DA list (all subjects at or above 90%). She was tutored to her eyeballs all the way to HSC. But she was actually became lazy and took it easy so it does seem that tutoring does help a kid to save time and can take it easier than others (ironic?). She dropped out of hard subjects and did mainly humanity subjects where memory is the key for higher marks. It is hard to say as all of the kids I knew were tutored up to their eyeballs! And all of them got over 90 ATAR.

My own child has entered HS in rather spectacular fashion with very high selective test score, turned down James Ruse and accepted a top scholarship. The kid is extremely happy at the school, got placed in the top class where most of the top kids are from Asian background and almost ALL of them are receiving tutoring in some fashion with many getting private 1-on-1 tutors (upper class families). Even Caucasian kids got tutors too. Guess what? My kid was working in a relax manner and could NOT keep up with the top kids but still stay close enough without any tutoring. So this year the kid decided to start working harder for a change. The kid still could NOT match the top kids with tutors! Teachers are positive though. They still say that things will change from year 10 and up where they said (claiming over 20 years of experience) self-learners will excel.

The main problem is it seems my kid cannot score consistently over 90% across most areas (in fact kids need 95% or higher) to stay at the top. It becomes even more complicated as top kids are ranked against kids at one year higher in math. In science they have to do extra tests at higher difficulty. Teachers rush a lot. They cover about 60%-70% of the textbooks and ask students to self-learn the rest. They always give harder questions outside what they teach in class to distinguish the top kids from the rest. They give kids so much homework that it is hard to get through them all. It looks like many people here have mentioned all these issues before about how tutors help kids to keep up.

My kid is still positive about being able to keep up without coaching once students temporarily give up a "life" when the HSC is nearer. They will all work harder. But from year 7-10, the ones without tutoring still try to relax and have fun so they wait until school marks start to count to the HSC then they will push hard. The year end presentations seem to confirm this. At year 7-9, over 90% of all awards are taken by students from Asian backgrounds who form the minority of the school (it is a bit of a generalisation here but nearly 100% of them have tutors). But from year 10-12, suddenly Caucasian students take about 70% of all academic awards and more inline with the school population.

Yet, my nieces swore that getting tutoring is the only way for them to succeed in selective schools. They are probably right since they were tutored since year 2. So tutoring was always a huge part of their lives. They said that English tutoring was a must considering that tutors provided ideas, strategies, planning, ... and they just wrote everything up and got excellent marks.

 

[INnoVation]

Well this is my story!

From year 6 i started tutoring to try get into a selective school, other kids I know from my school started from years 2,3,4! Normally 2-3 due to that OC thing. Now by the time I got into my selective school, I stopped tutoring. Yet still 70-80% went. Years 7-8.. I struggled, bad teachers LIKE SERIOUSLY... this match teacher dumps u a textbook and was like.. alternate questions. No explaining on the board.. I don't even know why she gets hired. THEN year 9 and 10 came along... I put in a bit more effort.. surprisingly i did very well in all my subjects, except Maths and English ): It was mainly maths, all the kids at my school were already at places like Dr Du. So this year in 11.. i only just decided to go tutoring, however i figured.. It was too late. Mid year report... terrible! Exams this week... man I know i lost so many marks since i don't have the confidence.


SO to sum it all up, tutoring in selective schools is kind of a way to keep your marks up within the schools standards. But there are those kids who have self discipline and dedication to learning the stuff themselves at home. Basically now i am needing to find place to go tutoring, or else my marks are just going to drop lower! It's good knowing that you've learnt something before they even teach it!