Our Story
Why I created Harding Tutorials
Around 14 years ago, my eldest son told me he wanted to sit the 11+ entrance exams and attend Grammar School with some of his friends.
Having always been a very bright child, I thought this was a good idea, as did his head-teacher and his class teacher. We had recently moved into the area from the North-East and had no experience of Grammar Schools and selective schooling.
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I was working at the time in the Primary School that all three of my boys attended. I was told that as he was a clever boy, comfortably in the top 20% of his class, he would breeze through the tests and no additional support should be given.
Just before the Summer holidays, my son sat a ‘mock 11+ test.’ This was a horrific experience.
Not only did he score under 50%, (required pass mark close to 80%,) he had never come across the style of questioning, answering format, test environment and had only managed to complete half the test in the allotted time!
He was utterly overwhelmed and very upset by the whole process. He decided he didn’t want to sit the actual test.
As we got into the summer holidays, I looked at the type of question he had been asked to answer. These Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning questions were nothing like he had ever seen at school.
I felt awful! I had put my child into an environment which absolutely wrecked his confidence. I couldn’t imagine sitting a driving test without taking lessons beforehand or at least, knowing what a road looked like. Who goes to an interview without some kind of preparation?
I decided to help him.
Over the Summer, we looked at various question types and worked out strategies for him to get the best out of himself. We played to his strengths; never once strove for perfection – reminded him that he was enough.
When the time came to take his tests, he aced them!!!
The following year, I helped another couple of kids and the year after, some more. To date, I have helped almost 400 children get into the selective school of their choice.
And thus, Harding Tutorials was born.