At Strive for Excellence Tutoring, our VCE Maths Tutoring can assist students of all abilities. Based in the South Eastern suburbs of Melbourne, we offer individual tutoring where our tutors customise a program based upon each student’s requirements. This allows students to realise their full potential for higher grades and increased self-confidence.
Studying mathematics at a VCE level opens doors for students in terms of university course options, and future professions. Vast ranges of university degrees require mathematics. Although mathematics has always been central to careers within the fields of health care, business, I.T. and accounting, there are now numerous jobs that require employees to have proficient maths skills. Students who do not take their maths studies seriously at VCE forfeit many potential career opportunities. Final year maths grades are vitally important and have a strong impact not only on gaining entry to the course of their choice, but also on how well a student will perform in their first year at university.
At Strive for Excellence, our tutors are well-equipped to help your child with their VCE maths tuition. Our tutors received exceptional study scores in maths, ensuring they have in-depth knowledge on all facets of the course. They themselves are now pursuing successful studies in fields such as medicine, law and science.
At Strive for Excellence we offer comprehensive tutoring in General Maths, Maths Methods, Further Maths and Specialist Maths.
Maths Methods (CAS)
Many students struggle with the giant leap between Year 10 Maths and Maths Methods. Methods is very algebra-based and some students lack skills in this area. If this is the case, we will begin by developing students’ algebra skills so that they have the necessary grounding for Methods.
At Strive for Excellence we have an emphasis on teaching our students mathematical reasoning, rather than simply rote learning. Teaching students maths by forcing them to learn by rote worsens exam results because are they failing to properly understand the subject.
Mathematical reasoning helps with application-type questions in exams. We also show students what key words to look out for in exams so that they understand what is actually being asked of them. In the same way, the introduction of CAS calculators has added a new dimension to the course. Students need to know how to use their calculators, but must also understand the processes of mathematics; otherwise they will be unable to solve the equations in front of them.
Further Maths
Further is an extremely popular and competitive subject, with over 30,000 students currently enrolled (compared to, for example, Specialist Maths, for which there are only 4000 students enrolled). This makes achieving higher grades challenging.
Our Further Maths programs encompasses the core area of statistics, but also covers the Number Patterns, Graphs and Relations, Matrices, Business Maths, Trigonometry and Geometry, and Networks modules.
Knowing how to use a graphics calculator correctly is also a primary focus. However, as with all of our maths programs, our tutors teach students to understand what they are inputting into their calculators, and why. Students discuss and analyse their answers with their tutor and do not move onto the next topic until they are confident with, and competent in, the current one.
Tutors can also assist students in preparing the bound resource for the final exam. They can help students with selecting the most important information, and organising it in such a way that will benefit the student most during the exam.
Specialist
Specialist Maths is regarded as the most difficult of all the maths subjects, with only 4000 students undertaking it in VCE. However, it is scaled up considerably, therefore obtaining a good score in the subject can make a significant different to a student’s ATAR score.
Our Specialist Maths program covers all aspects of the course, including Functions and Relations, Algebra, Calculus, Vectors and Mechanics.
Specialist Maths must be studied concurrently with Maths Methods. However, we find that many of the students that come to us for tutoring in Specialist Maths struggle with the subject because they do not have a firm handle on Maths Methods. Our experienced VCE maths tutors received exceptional recent scores in Methods and Specialist, and their expertise with the content of the subjects means they can assist students to make the connection between the two.
As with all of our maths tuition, our tutors ensure that students are not just rote learning, but actually understand what is being asked of them. This is crucial to success in the two end-of-year exams. One exam is multiple choice and the other is applying knowledge to answer both short and extended questions. Our experienced tutors teach students how to be competent in answering both types of questions.