It seems the test was pushed back, or Julian was absent on the day, because he still hadn’t completed it. As such, we continued with this topic as test revision, with more of a focus on factorising common brackets.

He didn’t seem as switched on as he was last lesson, so he struggled to remember some of the concepts we had previously covered. He needs to revise these concepts and make sure he is in the right mindset before the test.

Julian has a test tomorrow, so we spent the lesson going through his class revision booklet so I could get a better idea of where he’s at. I picked a couple of questions from each section. He was completely fine with all of the exponent law sections, and I was quite happy with his overall level. He was a little weaker with expanding and factorising because he had initially forgotten how to do them, but after a quick reminder, he was able to get the general idea quite well.

I noticed that Julian is quite prone to making small, avoidable mistakes, which is why I try to make it a habit for him to explain how he got his answer. Usually, when he goes through his working again, he is able to pick up on those mistakes himself. I think he is a little weaker with negative and fractional indices. It seems like some of the explanations behind these rules may not have been covered as clearly in class, which is why they can sometimes seem muddled or more complicated to him. Some extra practice should help clear up any confusion or misconceptions. He demonstrated that he can handle these questions, but an unfamiliar or strangely worded question can sometimes throw him off. I’d definitely recommend more practice with index questions that combine several different rules. In terms of expanding, he got the hang of it quite well but made a number of small mistakes with negative signs. He understood the process really well, though, and became much better at catching these mistakes himself towards the end of the lesson. I think factorising is probably his weakest topic going into the test. He understood intuitively that it is essentially the reverse of expanding, which is a great starting point. We just didn’t have as much time to spend on it towards the end of the lesson, so I’m not as confident about how he will handle the harder factorising questions.

He hadn't completed the homework, so we spent part of the lesson working through that together. He remembered concepts from the previous lesson well, particularly things like finding the median. I also had a look through the Victorian Curriculum, and it seems likely that geometry and angles may be one of the next topics they move onto. We went through it slowly, spending time making sure he develops the right approach and visual understanding for these types of problems rather than just memorising steps.

His teacher is still away, so they haven't moved onto a new topic for the past couple of weeks. They are still progressing within the current topic, but it has been quite slow and I don't think it's been particularly engaging for him. I think I'll continue covering geometry and angles next lesson so he's prepared if they do move onto it soon or have an upcoming test. He's doing quite well with geometry so far because we're building a strong visual foundation, but he still needs more practice, so I've attached some questions for him to complete as homework.

Her class has been covering perfect squares after factorising. A major skill in this topic is pattern recognition and identifying factors that work well. She did very well with this, so there were no major problems.

She was more likely to get stuck on the more challenging questions. I think tiredness and stress from several upcoming tests affected her concentration, which led to some careless mistakes and frustration when she became stuck. Overall, however, I was quite happy with what I saw, and I think this will become a comfortable topic for her with more practice. She needs to become much more familiar with the steps, ideally to the point where she can complete much of the process mentally, as she will not have the same amount of time during tests.