Beginning tuition in December. A headstart? Or too early?

Nowadays, I observe that more and more parents want their children to begin tuition in December. When I was still giving one-to-one tuition in 2006 and 2007, many parents asked if I could start tutoring their children in December before school starts.

Many people like to ask: are parents robbing their children of valuable play time? Is it totally necessary to begin tuition in a month when children should be happily playing and enjoying themselves? Shouldn't the kids deserve to have fun (or at least deserve a break) after one academic year of studying?

When I was in primary school. I always loved the holidays because it meant freedom from the academic stress of school work. 

Is there really a need to begin tuition in December? For me, I feel that it depends on how weak a student is in a subject and the student's pace of learning.

The students I tutored during the Dec holidays were weak in various subjects. Yet, they always go on to show improvement in the subsequent academic year. Introducing the coming year's syllabus in advance also increases their confidence in the subject when they go back to school.

When I was in secondary school, there were some subjects in which I started tuition in December and one of them was for O Level physics, just before beginning sec 4. It was a group tuition and I would go for lessons with three other classmates, once a week for one hour. We chose to start our tuition in December because we did not fare very well in the sec 3 exams.  My friends scored in the range of 50 plus. I failed with a 40 plus score and had to resit the exam-during the holidays. 

Our teacher, Mr Foo, shortened the lessons from one and a half hours to one hour because he didn't want to make the lessons too intensive. During these weekly lessons, he would do two things. Firstly, he would revise with us the sec 3 curriculum, so that we can consolidate our learning and revisit the topics that we were weak at. Secondly, he also began teaching the first few topics of the sec 4 syllabus so that we can go back to school in January, with a decent idea of what is to come. The headstart we received was invaluable because when school started, we found ourselves able to understand what the teacher was teaching, and also, much of what was taught had a look of familiarity. Our grades gradually improved and we all scored A's for our O Level.

I scored A's for all the subjects in which my tuition commenced in December (A Maths was the other subjects). However, there's no conclusive correlation to link the scoring of good grades with commencing tuition in December, because I also scored A's for other subjects in which I didn't even have tuition.

Therefore, in summary, I feel that tuition during the holidays should only be arranged if it is absolutely necessary-if a student is particularly weak in a subject. For students who have no problems coping with their academic workload, a stress-free holiday period should be just reward.