In June each year, hundreds of year 8 students across the state sit placement exams, with the hopes of securing a coveted position at one of Victoria’s Selective Schools. These schools offer talented and motivated students a rare and valuable opportunity to receive a top-class education, without the expense of private school fees. As you can imagine, the competition is fierce and the exam is one of the most challenging that students of this age are ever likely to face.

At Spectrum Tuition, we are passionate about preparing students for competitive exams such as these. We believe that every student should be given the opportunity to perform at their best in order to improve their chances of securing one of these highly sought after positions at their chosen school. Over the past fifteen years, we have prepared hundreds of students for the challenges of the Selective Schools Exam.

One thing we have noticed over this time is that many parents don’t know who to turn to when they have questions about the Selective Schools Exam. That’s why I decided to create a FREE Masterclass, designed to answer all of the questions you were never able to ask about the Selective Schools Exam.

The 45-minute online class covers…

• everything you need to know about the Selective Schools Exam
• case studies of previous successful students
• the structure and timing of the exam
• sample exam questions with worked solutions
• strategies that you can use to increase your child’s chances of Selective School success!

Click here to access the FREE masterclass now!

Our Brunswick campus will now be operating on Saturdays and Sundays starting in Term 4, 2019.

To help us understand what classes should be run, you can register your interest in the form below. Moreover, pay a $50 deposit and get a $150 gift certificate to use towards your Term 4 enrolment! This offer strictly applies to the Brunswick campus only.

Just in time for these upcoming school holidays, we’re running a giveaway for this year’s Royal Melbourne Show!

There are 3 prizes up for grabs:

1. Royal Melbourne Show 2019 Family A Ticket (2 Adults, 2 Children), $200 Ride Pass & $100 Spectrum Tuition Gift Certificate (Total value $380)
2. Royal Melbourne Show 2019 Family A Ticket​ (2 Adults, 2 Children), $105 Ride Pass & $100 Spectrum Tuition Gift Certificate (Total value $285)
3. Royal Melbourne Show 2019 Family A Ticket (2 Adults, 2 Children) & $100 Spectrum Tuition Gift Certificate (Total value $170)

Entries are now open, and will close on 22/09/2019 at 12:00AM EAST Melbourne, Australia .

Best of luck!

We often get asked about the Victorian Selective Schools Entrance Exam, and we can understand why- there’s a lot of information to take in! That is the reason why we have organised a parent networking and information morning to help parents understand what selective schools are, what the process involves, why you might want to consider this pathway for your child, and ultimately what it takes to get in. 

We will be running a FREE parent information and networking meetup for any parent interested in finding out more about the Victorian Selective Schools process, as well as provide parents with the opportunity to connect with other like-minded parents from within the Spectrum Tuition community.

Whether you have a child who is in year 7 or a child who is in primary school and would like to know about what’s to come, we would like to extend a warm invitation to join us at Footscray North Primary School on Saturday 13th July from 10am-12:30pm (Cnr Mephan St & Rosamond Rd, Footscray 3011). 

There will also be FREE morning tea and light refreshments. If you have friends who may also be interested in the information presented on the night, bring them along and make it a productive morning! 

Register now as tickets are strictly limited! This is an event not to be missed to meet fellow parents who have a keen interest in their child’s education, get some valuable information, and tips.

Parents and students are welcome to attend this event.

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Date: Saturday 13th July

Time: 10am – 12:30pm

Location: Footscray North Primary School, Cnr Mephan St & Rosamond Rd, Footscray VIC 3011

Cost: FREE

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About Us:

With over 18 years of experience, we deeply care about helping students reach their FULL potential. If your child is willing to learn, we will give your child a fighting chance to succeed. When children are inspired to learn and achieve, the world in which we live becomes a better place for everyone. Our goal is to provide the absolute best experience for students, parents and our team of passionate tutors. That’s why we continually strive to make Spectrum Tuition better than it was yesterday.

We take on the responsibility of teaching your child seriously. Our materials are very carefully structured and sequenced to ensure that your child feels more and more confident with each passing week. We believe that students should be guided through the content so they are equipped with the skills necessary to succeed. We also believe in transparency and in giving parents a full picture of their child’s performance by communicating results to parents weekly via our online portal. 

Whether you are preparing for a scholarship exam, selective schools exam, NAPLAN, VCE or would just like to be more confident with school in general, Spectrum Tuition can help guide you in the right direction. We take a very personalised approach to finding solutions to help you with your unique situation.

It all starts with a FREE assessment. Call 1800 668 177 or visit www.spectrumtuition.com for more information.

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About The Presenter:

As the founder of Spectrum Tuition, Thuy Pham is dedicated to creating a consistent educational system to give parents the information they need to help them make decisions that will ultimately affect their child’s education and future goals. 

Thuy is extremely passionate about education and teaching and is always looking for ways to openly share the knowledge and insights she has gained since starting Spectrum Tuition in 2001. She writes articles for the Spectrum Tuition blog, sends out email updates, presents free webinars, creates videos and will always take the time to sit down with parents to discuss their child’s educational goals and plans for the future.

She is proud to be working with such a talented group of hand-picked tutors who are equally as passionate about learning and teaching as she is, and is very excited about meeting and connecting with parents outside the centre at the first parent information and networking session.

You can listen to her on our Spectrum Tuition Podcast, where she gives practical advice on how to navigate the Australian education system and to help your child take their skills to the next level. 

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Timetable:

10:00am – 10:30am : Morning tea, light refreshments and networking

10:30am – 11:30am : All You Need To Know About The Selective Schools Entrance Exam

11:30am – 12:00pm : Q & A

12:00pm – 12:30pm : Networking and morning tea

12:30pm : Event ends

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Please note that we will be taking promotional photographs and video on the day and by attending, you consent to us using these images on our website, social media and print.

If you have any questions about anything related to Spectrum Tuition, please feel free to call us on 1800 668 177 or email us at enquiries@spectrumtuition.com

What’s the most important skill for a young coder to have? Is it an encyclopedic knowledge of commands? Is it a perfect fluency in every known coding language? Is it the ability to follow instructions perfectly? No. It’s creativity.

Like most skills, coding requires creative thinking. When faced with an unusual problem, young coders need to be able to think of unique and original solutions. The ability to think creatively about unfamiliar problems is one of the most important skills that will set your child apart in the workplace of the 21st century. But, most importantly, creativity is fun!

Creativity is the main skill we try to foster at Yellow Brick Code. Yellow Brick Code is a 3 day school holiday coding program specifically designed to make it fun and easy for young children aged 5-10 learn to code and build their own programs and games.

In our most recent course, students had the chance to imagine, design and create their own original games. Check out some of the images of their incredible creations.

In this game, the fish has to swim to the cake while avoiding the cloud…

In this game, you have to take care of a friendly unicorn by feeding it lollipops and playing with the ball…

In this game, you have to play with a rabbit and feed it plenty of carrots to keep it happy…

In this game, you have to help the penguin jump between platforms to find his snowflake…

Our next Yellow Brick Code program will run from the 1st to the 3rd of October at our Footscray Campus. Early bird pricing ends 3rd September and places are strictly limited. Book now to secure your place in this truly unique school holiday experience!

If you have any questions, please contact us on 1800 668 177 or visit www.yellowbrickcode.com.au for more information.

With limited places available, register today to avoid disappointment!

In a world where most people walk around with a mobile phone in their pocket at all times, it is often suggested that we no longer need mental maths skills. Many people assume that the ability to add, subtract, multiply and divide numbers quickly in our head is useless in a day and age when a phone, calculator or computer can do it better. So why do we still teach students mental arithmetic? And, more importantly, is this still a skill worth teaching?

To put it simply, yes! While calculators are a wonderful invention, there are many benefits of having good mental maths skills. So here are the 3 most important reasons for your child to improve their mental maths skills. We’ll also give the top 3 tips that our maths tutors use every day!

1. Mental maths provides a deeper understanding of calculation

Imagine you wanted to order 4 sandwiches each for 14 people. You grab your calculator and type in 4 x 14. However, as you are typing, your finger slips and you accidentally type 4 x 144. The calculator gives you the answer 576. If you have good mental maths skills, you would probably notice something a bit odd. Based on your own understanding of how multiplication works, you would reason that 576 was far too many sandwiches.

As such, you could type the equation in to your calculator again and get the correct answer, which is 56. However, if you ignore mental maths and always trust the calculator, your little slip of the finger can be disastrous! Imagine accidentally buying 576 sandwiches when you only needed 56! This point is especially relevant for VCE students who, if they rely too heavily on their calculators during their exams, can lose valuable marks.

Watch the following video of how a Spectrum Tuition student (and my daughter) demonstrates a mental maths technique that our maths tutors use in our classes:

2. Mental maths is vital in exams without calculators

Like it or not, our current school system requires students to complete a majority of their exams without calculators. We adults can always pull out our phones to check our working out. However, students are required to rely on their own abilities to add, subtract, multiply and divide numbers. And while all students are taught techniques to work out sums on paper, the ability to quickly do sums in their heads can help students save valuable seconds and even minutes in an exam situation.

During multiple choice exams, mental maths can make life a lot easier. It provides a quick way of narrowing down which answers might be correct.  can also help to figure out which are definitely wrong, making it much easier to choose the correct answer.

When preparing our students for Selective School and Scholarship exams, our maths tutors give techniques to answer questions as quickly and as accurately as possible. The ability to quickly perform calculations in their head is one of the most valuable tools that students can have from primary all the way to VCE.

3. Mental maths is practical in real life

The ability to quickly calculate complicated sums is also a valuable life skill. Whether you’re trying to figure out how much your shopping cart is, how to split the bill at a dinner party or trying to work out how many boxes you will need to pack all of your groceries, or trying to figure out much money you have left over after making a purchase, mental maths will make your life easier.

By developing good mental maths skills from a young age, children are able to improve other skillsets and easily work out answers to mathematical scenarios in everyday life. It’s never too early or too late to start giving your child the foundational skills that they will need to succeed throughout their mathematics education.

Tips from Our Maths Tutors

Below are three further strategies to try out today.

a. Adding from left to right

25 + 36

Similar to the above strategy, this technique requires that you break both numbers into tens and ones

20 + 30 + 5 + 6

= 50 + 11

= 61

b. Compensation strategy

34 + 49
First, since 49 is so close to 50, we will add 1 to 49 which will make it easier to solve:
34 + 50
= 84
Then, since we added one extra to the original equation, we have to subtract one from the final answer
= 83

c. Using friendly numbers

Friendly numbers are numbers that are easy to work with. For example, multiples of 10 are “friendly” because they are easy to work with when we add or subtract.

We begin by getting to a friendly number, which is typically a multiple of 10, 100, or 100 – depending on the numbers that we are working with. Then we add on the remainder.

265 + 18

We can add 5 from the 18 to get to a friendly number 270.

We have 13 left. so now we can simply add the 13 to the 270 to get a final answer of 283.

Mental maths is not about following a one size fits all process. It involves having many “tools” available and being able to effectively choose and use a tool to solve an equation. The important thing to remember is that we don’t want to force our students into using a tool that doesn’t work for them. This is why it’s so important to introduce a variety of different strategies, teach them in isolation to allow mastery, and then allow students to begin choosing the tool that works best for them individually.

Going back to our original problem at the start of this email, now that we have a number of mental maths strategies, we can solve the problem as follows:

Most students are comfortable with their times tables up to 12. Therefore, to solve 14 x 4, we might break up the sum as follows:

12 x 4 = 48

2 x 4 = 8

We then add the answers using the ‘friendly numbers’ strategy.

48 + 8 = 56

If you want to learn more about how our tutors can help your child develop their mathematics and English skills, click here to download a free course booklet catered to your child’s needs.

• Is your child at the top of their class at school?

• Did your child perform above average on their NAPLAN test?

• Are you concerned that your child is frustrated with the pace of their class?

• Does your child ever complain that their schoolwork is too easy?

• Is your child able to work hard on their homework without being nagged?

• Is your child constantly motivated to achieve?

• Will your child be commencing secondary school in 2019?

If you answered yes to most of these questions, then your child may just be the perfect candidate for SEALP.

What is SEALP?

SEALP stands for Select Entry Accelerated Learning Program. SEALP is an initiative of the Victorian Education Department to that ensures that talented, gifted and motivated students have the best possible chance to achieve excellent in their education. The program runs for years 7-10 and allows advanced students a chance to work at a more advanced pace and level.

What does it involve?

Student enrolled in SEALP usually complete the years 7-10 of their high school education in 3 years. This leaves them with more options for how they wish to complete their final VCE years. Some students finish their VCE in the next two years, while others use the extra year to complete a wider range of VCE and university extension subjects. In the end, this extra year will ultimately give students a far greater chance of achieving the high ATAR score that they deserve.

How do I get my child into a SEALP school?

Students that wish to be accepted SEALP usually have to sit a series of tests and interviews. Though the exact details vary from school to school, most school use testing companies, such as Edutest to provide their tests. These tests assess a range of abilities such as reading comprehension, mathematics skills, written expression, verbal and numerical reasoning.

The tests usually run in May, so now is the time to sign your child up! Click here for a list of schools that run SEALP, as well as the dates for their exams. 

What can we do to prepare?

As you can imagine, the entrance test for SEALP is extremely difficult; students face tricky questions and strict time limits. What’s more, a lot of students are unfamiliar with the pressure that comes with sitting such a test. Fortunately, that’s where we come in.

Thanks for reading! If you would like to see how our classes can help your child, click here to download a free course book!

It’s a tough time to be a student. Students are put under more pressure and required to be more competitive than ever before. To be successful in today’s academic world, you need a certain set of skills. Therefore, today we are going to look at 4 study skills that all 21st century students need to achieve their goals.

1. Avoiding Distractions
In the past, the only way students could distract themselves from their homework was to gaze out the window. Today, the possibilities for procrastination are endless. With text messages, the internet and video games, the ability to avoid distractions is more valuable than ever. The key to avoiding distractions is to be systematic about it. Therefore, successful students are the, more often than not, ones who draw a strict distinction between study time and relaxation time.

2. Flexibility
Secondly, things change quickly these days. Subjects and jobs that existed in the past no longer exist. As such, students are expected to pick up new skills and adapt to change quickly. Therefore, students who are comfortable learning in a variety of different ways, and approaching new ideas are much more likely to be successful in today’s world.

3. Digital Literacy

In today’s world, computers are everything. Students who develop digital and coding skills are more likely to find rewarding careers in tomorrow’s world. Furthermore, the ability to effectively use technology can help with research, logical thinking and problem solving. Overall, these are skills that are necessary in every subject.

4. Independence

Overall, you can only get so far by doing as you are instructed. Successful students are the ones who are independent and self motivated. They do their own research, set their own goals and pursue their own curiosity. Particularly in a world where class sizes are getting bigger, the ability for students to set their own schedules, keep track of their own progress, and work independently is essential to academic success.

Would you like to learn more about how you can develop their study skills? Click here to join our mailing list and we’ll send you our FREE study skills guide, aimed to equip your child with all the skills they need to achieve their academic goals.

At Spectrum Tuition, we’re always looking out for ways to learn and develop new study skills. Recently, we stumbled upon an inspiring TED talk by Matt Cutts called “Try something new for 30 days.” In this talk, Matt recommends a simple method for learning new skills, making the most of your time and building confidence. He argues that each month we should pick a new challenge and spend the entire month trying to complete it. Some of the things Matt tried during his trials were…

• Riding to work every day for a month
• Giving up sugar for a month
• Writing a novel in a month

As Matt explains, a month is the perfect amount of time to add or subtract a habit from your daily routine. 30 days is not so long that it is unachievable, but it is also long enough to show a significant improvement or to make a significant achievement. He also argues that developing a new skill every month makes your month more memorable and, most importantly, builds self confidence.

But what does this have to do with education? Well, here are some ideas for challenges that your child can set themselves for the next month.

• Limit screen time to half an hour a day for a month
• Walk to school every day for a month
• Do their homework as soon as they get home for a month
• Read a book every week for a month
• Practice their times tables every morning for a month

These goals seem achievable; surely, anyone can do something for just a month. But you’ll be surprised by how much little things add up to big results. These simple goals can have a dramatic impact on your child’s education! We’ve made a handy board that you can use to write down your own goal. Check it out!

Join the Spectrum Tuition 30 Day Challenge!

Want to build confidence, develop positive habits or learn a new skill. Why not to the 30 Day Challenge with us.  Click here to sign up to our mailing list and we’ll send you our goal setting guide for FREE! If you’d like to see how other members of our community are responding to the challenge, join our closed Facebook group for more inspiring. 

Is your child sitting a scholarship exam in Term 1 or a selective schools exam in June next year? Are you worried that you may be too late to prepare? Do you feel that your child would benefit from a revision workshop covering all the skills they have developed over the course of this year? Does your child still struggle with a particular area of the exam? This may include essay writing, numerical reasoning, verbal reasoning or creative writing or mathematics?

If this is the case, then we have the summer program for you! This summer, Spectrum Tuition will offer limited places in its intensive ‘Selective Entry Exam Catch-Up Classes’. Classes will run over three days from 15th – 17th January 2018 at Footscray North Primary School (Cnr Rosamond Rd & Mephan St, Footscray).

Classes will cover the foundational content students require for all six parts of the exam.

Students will learn to:

• Structure and write effective, engaging narratives, and persuasive essays in fifteen minutes.
• Quickly and accurately solve mathematical and numerical reasoning problems by drawing on BODMAS, algebra, factors and multiples, and other core mathematical concepts covered in Terms 1 & 2 of the selective course. The scholarship course will focus on topics specific to the ACER scholarship exams, held in February.
• Speedily and accurately interpret common types of verbal and logical reasoning questions covered in Terms 1 & 2 of the selective course.
• Read a range of texts and respond to comprehension questions under pressure.
• Manage your time through timed tests

Our expert tutors will work through core concepts step by step, building your child’s confidence and giving them the support they need to do their absolute best on the exam.

Classes will also help students apply the knowledge through practice exams. As a result, they will get vital experience working under strict exam-style conditions.

BONUS OFFER! Enrol now and get an exam package PLUS our best selling essay writing bundle (valued at $238) absolutely FREE!

Places are strictly limited. So book now to avoid disappointment. Click here to find out more!

Over the September school holidays, we held out first Yellow Brick Code coding workshop! Twenty students, aged from 5-8 joined us on our adventure. We travelled through the fictional world of Codeland with our friendly code block characters. Using a combination of story telling, games and activities, we introduced students to the fundamental skills that they need to create their own fun video games. And, best of all, we all had a great time!

Today, we thought we’d share some of the highlights of each day.

Day 1: 

On the first day, students were introduced to the four code blocks, Kieran, Christina, Chloe, and Cody, who invited them on an adventure across Codeland to retrieve 9 magic batteries. In order to find these batteries, students had to complete various challenges across the 3 days. First, students had to travel through the Forest of Bugs, and learn valuable debugging skills. Then, they had to brave Mount Persistence, where they learned the importance of not giving up when faced with difficult problems. We also learned the importance of responsible computer use, and how to avoid sharing personal information online. Then it was time for a game!

Using a fun game, we taught students how to direct a character through a maze, using simple direction blocks. Once students got the hang of it, we showed them how to they could use this skill to program a character to move around their computer screen.

Day 2: 

On the second day, we used our coding skills to help an old lady find her missing diamonds. In order to do so, we had to learn how to “loop” or repeat coding commands. We then used these skills to draw images using only code! By this point, everyone was getting the hang of coding.

We then played “my robot friend,” a game that required students to pretend to be robots and follow simple instructions. This was a fun way understanding the concept of “events,” which are actions that cause something else to happen in a computer program. Once we all understood the concept of “events,” we had a go making an animated story starring a playful puppy!

Day 3: 

On day 3, the code blocks met a brave knight and a fearsome dragon. Students had to use all of their skills and cunning to program a computer game about a knight and a dragon. It was a lot of fun making a video game from scratch, but we made sure we took lots of breaks to get some fresh air and play some games outside.

By the end of the 3 days, our students helped the code blocks find all of the 9 magic batteries. To celebrate their impressive efforts, each of our students received a certificate, recognising their impressive persistence and coding abilities. We were so impressed with how much progress our students made over just 3 days!

If you’d like to know more about how you can introduce your kids to coding, click here to join our mailing list, and we’ll send you a free guide to running your own offline coding camp at home!

Want to practice your exam taking skills under realistic test conditions before the actual selective schools exam? Then the selective schools mock exam is what you’ve been waiting for!

Our 2017 Victorian selective schools mock exam is now open for enrollments.

We will be holding our 2017 selective schools mock exam for students sitting the Victorian Selective Schools Exam on Sunday 14th May (mock exam) and Sunday 21st May (workshop).

Why Sit Our Mock Exam?

Are you worried that your child isn’t ready for an exam? Do you want to know how they’ll perform under realistic time constraints and exam conditions? If so, you’ll want to enrol in our mock exam programme.

Our mock exam helps students get a realistic sense of how they’ll perform under the intense pressure of a 3-hour exam. We then follow up with a 4-hour workshop that’ll go through the most common problems student had with the mock exam questions.

To ensure that students get the maximum value from the workshop we limit our intake to 45 students.  We don’t fill out the hall with hundreds of students and then run a generic workshop. We tailor our program based on the data generated from the actual mock exam.

How Does It Work?

The exam will begin at 9am and will be held at Footscray North Primary School (map). We will hold the exam in the school hall.

Then, we will hold a 4 HOUR interactive workshop the very next Sunday outlining the most common errors and provide tips on how to improve your performance on exam day. We also encourage parents of students who have sat the mock exam to sit in on the workshop, so that they can fully understand what their child needs to do to prepare in the last few weeks before the exam.

Places are strictly limited to 45 places – so register today to secure your spot.

This is your only chance for your child to sit a full-length exam in a similar style and format as the actual test BEFORE the day AND get feedback on your performance!