Living on the border of southwest London and Surrey, in a patch where there happen to be five grammar schools in a five-mile radius, I’ve seen first-hand our burgeoning national obsession with tutoring, and it is not healthy.
The area around Sutton is flush with businesses offering individual or group courses that can charge hundreds or even thousands of pounds to prepare children for exams, whether prep school entry, 11-plus, A-levels or just to keep them up to speed in class.
What’s wrong, you might ask, with parents paying to ensure their kids have grasped the finer points of fronted adverbials? The problem begins to loom large when you realise just how deep-rooted and widespread tutoring has become.
