She shows a good understanding of what is being taught in class. She does not have any problems applying formulas and solving questions, and she is able to immediately apply newly learnt formulas. Taking our time so that Olivia fully understands these larger topics, which made up most of her previous test, should make it much easier for her to understand and answer questions without feeling confused.

She mentioned that she had a bit of difficulty with the homework trigonometry problems, mainly taking longer to figure them out. The topic itself is quite straightforward, so I will include more questions as practice for her. When reviewing the test, she struggled the most with questions on factorising, linear equations, and probability. She is quite good at expanding brackets, so the opposite process of factorising just needs more practice and familiarity. For linear equations, she sometimes gets mixed up when using the information given in the question to form an equation and find an answer. To help with this, I will incorporate Desmos, an online graphing tool, so she can visualise lines. This should make it much easier to understand the problems and know which values from the question go into which part of the formula. Probability is a more challenging topic that may take some time to fully grasp. There are many different scenarios and question types, so we will go through them together to build confidence in knowing when and how to approach each one.

I gave Julian a crash course on tree diagrams and probability. We spent most of the lesson going through the theory and working through different examples. By the end of the lesson, he demonstrated that he understood what we had covered. Finding the missing angle of a shape went very well. Initially, his working out was a bit unclear, which led to a few small mistakes. After making a couple of corrections, he did very well, and I was particularly happy with how clear his working out became.

He got stuck on a percentage question during his MathPathways revision. He has always struggled with percentages, so I will try to include some percentage practice in every lesson or as homework, so it becomes more second nature to him.

We went through almost all of the topics she has covered over the year. I was very impressed that she was able to remember how to solve the problems without needing much of a refresher. She clearly understands what has been taught in class, as shown by how smoothly she works through problems. For topics like trigonometry and simplifying fractions, she worked through them as second nature, easily applying the concepts and steps learned in class. Her curriculum is certainly advanced, so she has done very well to keep up. Overall, she performed very well considering the variety of topics I gave her. I expect her to perform even better in upcoming lessons, as they will be more structured and focused on related, sequential topics.

As highlighted by both her mother and herself, she tends to freeze up during tests, feeling overwhelmed and struggling with more difficult worded problems. She can get stuck when questions are unfamiliar. However, these questions often just require staying calm and working through what she already knows to make the initial step that turns the problem into a familiar one. Fully understanding concepts, meaning why they work, practicing these more challenging problems, and developing a more confident mindset will help her overcome this hurdle. With confidence, she will see that these problems are not impossible or too difficult. They simply require that first step to become something she is used to solving.

Extending on from previous lessons, Julian showed that he understands both topics. Pythagoras’ theorem and basic trigonometry are some of the more straightforward concepts, so with enough practice he should not have any issues, even in test situations or when he is a bit more absent-minded.

Both topics involve right-angled triangles, so he occasionally got confused and mixed them up. He does understand the material, but I think he’ll still be prone to making small mistakes when he’s distracted or not fully attentive. In general, he needs to improve on completing his homework. I’ll have a word with him next lesson to make sure he’s attempting and finishing all the homework.