FAQ

No.  In my experience, the main benefits of 1-1 tutoring are arrived at via the tutor-student relationship and also the aid to concentration provided by having someone physically sitting next to you.  These two factors can be equally, or even better, well provided for in a classroom setting with an experienced teacher.  

Mathematical Methods and Specialist Mathematics are the perfect subjects to teach students the skills necessary to engage with genuinely difficult content, such as:

• how to structure your study

• knowing when you are being unproductive

• being aware of when and how to rest

• knowing what to do when you get stuck

• the magic of spaced repetition

• how to engage with forums

• how to train with AI

These are skills your child will learn at Falcon Maths and will provide benefits long after graduating from high school.  Failing to learn these skills because you are reliant on another individual to make you study is such a missed opportunity.

The junior and senior classes are run differently.

For the first part of the junior lesson the students work in groups through past maths competitions questions.  For the second half of the lesson they work through the sections of their workbooks that match and extend what they are learning at their respective schools.

For the senior classes, as the content is standardised across schools, instead of working through the competition questions I will spend the first part of the session explicitly teaching a difficult concept that they are currently studying at school.  After that they will go on to their individual study from their workbooks.

What I'm finding nowadays is that students are getting overwhelmed with the amount of information/resources that are available. What they are really needing is for someone to filter out the noise and give them a space to be able to concentrate.

In class students are free to ask any questions they are currently stuck on, but usually I just end up identifying the misconception and point them to the relevant section of the workbook for us to go through. Most of the time that clears up any issues they are having.  It's quite amazing how much a student can get through in 90 minutes when you take away their screens and give them well structured learning material. An example section of one of the workbooks can be found here.

This is a difficult question to answer, however if your intention is for your child to do both mathematical methods and specialist mathematics in senior, I would recommend at the start of grade 10.  While most schools have year 10 extension maths programs, very few have specialist maths preparatory programs in year 10.  Beginning in year 10 would give your child a very a good foundation for when they start their senior courses.

It also gives your child the opportunity to build the teacher-student relationship before they start experiencing genuine difficulty with maths.  I've had parents contact me to enrol at Falcon Maths as a result of their child failing an exam, but finding their child refusing to accept help at that point. Waiting until your child fails an exam before seeking help may be too late.

I do; however, please keep in mind that the solve criteria for the PSMTs (problem solving and modelling tasks) is only worth 7 out of the 20 marks for the assignment. The other 13 marks are awarded for the writing itself (formulate, evaluate, and communicate criteria), and every school has a slightly different interpretation of how to fulfil those.

I can ensure your child understands the task, is familiar with the software they need to use (usually either Excel, Desmos, or Geogebra), and is able to arrive at a comprehensive yet elegant model. However, as I am not the one marking the assignment, their classroom teacher is the final authority on what the assignment should ultimately contain.

I would highly recommend submitting a near-completed task at the draft stage. As your child's teacher will not have to worry about the mathematics being correct, they will be able to focus on giving feedback on the other criteria.

It is possible to come to the other session; however, that is only recommended for one-off makeup lessons. The Tuesday and Thursday afternoon sessions are run differently to cater to the different age groups. Your child would get the most out of coming to the session that is targeted for their age group.

ATAR is the acronym for Australian Tertiary Admission Rank and is the primary (but not only) piece of information that universities use to decide which students will be accepted into what courses.  The ATAR is a ranking system with 2000 bands.  The top band is 99.95, the next is 99.90 and so on all the way down to 0.00.  The process to calculate a student's ATAR is as follows:

1. The student completes all of their school based assessment (internal assessment)

2. The student completes all of their external exams (external assessment)

3. The results for the internal and external assessments are added together into a combined raw mark out of 100 for each subject

4. The raw marks for each subject are then scaled to account for the relative difficulty of each subject

5. The student's top 5 scaled subject marks are then selected and added together

6. All students across the state are then ranked from highest to lowest according to the number arrived at step 5:

• 1st - 30th students received a 99.95

• 31st - 60th students receive a 99.90

• the 61st - 90th receive a 99.85 etc

NOTE: the number of students getting awarded each band is usually around but not exactly 30.  It is dependent on the amount of students in the state applying for an ATAR each year.  30 is the number arrived at if the number of students applying for an ATAR is 60 000 (i.e. 60 000 / 2000 = 30) .

More information of the ATAR can be found on the QTAC website.