‘My child is not where he/she should be because of his/her age!’
/Wrong!
If your child is not ‘where he/she should be’ it has nothing to do with their age. It has everything to do with what has been done to support them at home.
Many parents across the UK right now, believe that merely sending their kids to top school like Habs/Westminster/ St. Pauls/South Hampstead etc is enough.
Well, I’m here to tell you that it is not.
Expecting your child to be where he/she needs to be by relying only and exclusively on the school is pure madness. And I do not care that you are paying 30-40k+ a year to send them there. Who cares? That’s on you. That’s your choice to pay that money. Be delighted with your choice. Be delighted that you are in that privileged position. Not everyone is. But be laser sharp aware that a school (any school) is not the Holy Grail. A school is not the be all and end all when it comes to the success of your child.
And it has nothing to do with their age if they are not where they need to be.
A class in a private school will still have a ratio of 1:16-27 children. A teacher (no matter how great!) will never be able to provide as much support to a child compared to the support that can be provided on a 1:1 basis.
The support that you provide at home will still be the best support that your child will ever have regardless of where they go to school.
A class teacher in a school (no matter how great!) has the responsibility of teaching, looking after and providing an education to all of the children in her class (not just your child).
A teacher has to deal with behaviour management.
A teacher has to deal with marking every single child’s learning.
A teacher has to deal with parents and their needs and complaints. A teacher has 1000 other things to think about during her working day (and the success of your child is 1/1000 of the things that she needs to get done!).
Whereas when it comes to working 1:1, you can have full control and ownership over how your child is doing. How empowering. Do you know that I’ve never once paid attention to reports from my son’s nursery. They will never know his academic capabilities and capacity as well as I do. Ever.
Do you know that many of our students continue to work with us long after they’ve been successful at gaining a place at their school of choice. We work 1:1 with children from Habs, NLCS, South Hampstead, Glendower, Falkner House and Westminster – to name very few!
Take full ownership of fully supporting them to be where they need to be (according to your standards). I expect my son (and of course my students) to always be at least 1.5 – 2 years above their current age across all areas of the National Curriculum. That is my choice and one that I am very proud of. So are my clients.
Where do you want your child to be? Decide. Write it down and go all in yourself to support them to be where they need to be according to your vision and to your standards. Please drown out the noise out there - because I can’t believe how much noise there is out there!
