Having a visual way to explore equations makes a world of difference for a student’s confidence. With online Year 11 Extension 1 maths tutoring, they do the work live on a shared screen instead of watching someone else do it.
Extension 1 is where maths starts asking students to think, as well as follow a method. Sessions are built around working through harder problems together, with your child doing the thinking.
Why working through harder problems live helps
In Extension 1, the difficulty is usually in the first step: seeing which idea a question needs. A worked solution shows the answer, but not how someone decided where to start.
Working live, the tutor can ask what your child notices, what they’d try first, and why, before anything is written. That’s the skill Extension 1 tests.
| What we show live | What your child sees | The idea it locks in |
|---|---|---|
| A cubic graphed in Desmos alongside its factors | Each factor matches a place where the curve crosses the x-axis | Roots, factors and graphs are the same information |
| A repeated factor, such as (x − 2)² | The curve touches the axis instead of crossing it | How a double root behaves |
| A secant line sliding into a tangent | The gradient settling to a single value | What a derivative actually is |
How a session works
Sessions run on Google Meet with a shared digital whiteboard, and Desmos comes in whenever a graph helps. Your child can write on an iPad or type and draw with a mouse.
- Check-in: how they’re feeling and what’s come up since last week.
- Set the focus: based on upcoming assessments and anything from previous sessions that still needs work.
- Attempt first: your child starts a harder question before any help, and talks through their thinking.
- Work through it together: the tutor asks questions to unlock the next step, without giving it away.
- Review and next steps: a quick recap, written into the shared Google Doc.
How we check it’s landing
Signs it’s working
- Your child starts unfamiliar questions instead of waiting for a hint.
- They connect a polynomial’s factors to its graph.
- Their expanding and factorising is quick and accurate.
- They can explain why a method works, as well as how to use it.
Every session’s notes sit in the shared Google Doc, so you can see what was covered at any time.