Paytar: Tutoring’s Role In HSC Success
Tutoring Or No Tutoring, Do Students Need Extra Help?
H. A. G. Longstaff
LONG BEEN KNOWN AS THE PAYTAR, IS THE HSC PAY TO WIN? It is outrageously common for students, especially in their last two years of high school, to engage in large amounts of external tutoring to aid them in academic success. Many parents of students would spend upwards of $5,000 annually for tutoring for a singular subject alone. Although this may be helpful for students who may need extra time to grasp concepts, does tutoring inhibit students’ ability to acquire problem solving and critical thinking skill sets of their own?
No matter the extensive amount pupils may spend on tutoring, all students will sit in the exam hall alone and will be required to draw on their individual skill sets to attain success. Often the students achieving the dux of a year or the mythical and enviable 99.95 ATAR are not the ones who received copious amounts of external helping hands but rather are those who simply outwork and out-study their competition. Despite the adage “Hard work beats talent”, there is doubtless large amounts of talent required to receive such a high mark. It is undeniable that external tutoring may “buy” students a few extra marks, but establishing the ability to transform information into a cohesive argument will much more effectively ensure success in the HSC and beyond.
Many students at Shore participate in the popular HSC tutoring program, CoWorks, which is known to provide feedback and tutoring for every subject. The program requires students to have twice weekly stints in their Mosman office doing supervised study and receiving worksheets and feedback. The CoWorks team also provides exemplar essays and in-depth feedback on student’s assignments and practice essays. There is no uncertainty that this program is a very extensive form of tutoring, and it has provided some impressive results, with most students scoring well above 90. In fact, to become a coach at CoWorks you need to have scored a minimum 95 ATAR. However, this does not come at a low cost. One year of the minimum HSC CoWorks required sessions costs 10,560 per year!
Especially in a school such as ours, where there is a plethora of Study Centres and resources that students can access every single morning and afternoon of the week, surely tutoring is not a necessity. Simply, students at Shore should not feel the need to spend considerable amounts of money on help that is already offered on a large-scale within the gates of School. Often our own teachers will be more up-to-date with changes in syllabus requirements and are highly skilled and possess an in-depth knowledge on their chosen subject matter. For instance, many of the highly skilled teachers at our School have attained PhD’s and have many decades of teaching experience. The skill sets that come with such a high level of both experience and knowledge are rarely exhibited by a personal tutor. Ultimately, tutoring is overwhelmingly popular for a decisive reason. It works. Frequent tutoring for a student’s worst performing subject will almost always result in better marks. But is tutoring a panacea for bad grades? Certainly not. The HSC requires copious amounts of study and hard work in order to receive a competitive ATAR, and while tutoring may well help students better understand topics, it simply cannot replace hard work.