How It Works
Daily Practice
We will give your child a short weekly online diagnostic test, to identify any cracks that may be forming as the year goes on. Your child then needs to spend just a minimum of 15 minutes daily on "fixing" whatever these tests point out.
Reporting
Every question in these tests comes with a very comprehensive report, with all the necessary tools to help remedy any problem areas. Click here for a sample of such a report .
Get Support
Help is provided via our own AI Tutor, our comprehensive video-memorandum database and our Human Tutor Fallback facility (eTutor).
See Progress
Watch as confidence and grades improve through regular questions, practice and exposure to explanations, and monitor weekly reports of your child's tests and interaction with our system.
In a nutshell
The three important parts:
1. Weekly short diagnostic tests to catch any problems as and when they arise.
2. A comprehensive report for each question (not just for the test as a whole!).
3. Lots of tools and resources to address any areas of concern highlighted by the diagnostic test.
A Summary
Weekly diagnostic tests
On a weekly basis, as the year goes on, your child needs to complete online diagnostic tests.
The purpose of these weekly tests is very clear and simple: To catch any topic, skill or technique that your child may not fully understand, quickly, and address it before it becomes a problem in formal tests.
Key benefits:
- Builds consistent study habits
- Reinforces learning through daily practice (Just 15 minutes minimum each day)
- Prevents learning loss
- Reduces test anxiety through consistent preparation
- All questions still need to be done on paper first
- You, as the parent, will get a weekly report on the status of these tests, as well as any video-memorandums or other tests that were used
The Over-the-Shoulder Tutor
This is our own AI Tutor that is trained on helping learners understand how to approach and answer questions in Mathematics.
We offer the OTS Tutor for use in any of the following five ways:
- Direct interaction in a chat window where questions can be voiced or typed. We encourage our students to really make full use of this facility, by constantly asking questions for re-explanations or clarifications. Our Over-the-Shoulder Tutor is trained to flourish on questions!
- We provide ready-to-use prompts for the OTS Tutor, that can simply be copied from the Report and pasted in the chat window for a comprehensive tutoring session.
- Our OTS Tutor is also trained to be able to provide Practice Questions, similar to the original question that was asked. It is not necessary anymore to go search for past papers, just ask the OTS Tutor to generate questions, and mark them for you! If you want to go further and practice more difficult versions of these questions, just ask for it....
- The OTS Tutor is capable of accepting images, and we are constantly expanding our Question Bank, which are questions lifted from past papers. Each of these questions have a button to download the image and then upload it to the OTS Tutor, with a question such as "Please explain" or "I don't know what to do here".
- If students prefer to do any other questions, whether it is homework or past papers, on paper first, a photo of the question and their attempt can be uploaded to the OTS Tutor, with a simple request to "mark it for me".
Video-memorandums
We have a vast database of video-memorandums, compiled since 2004 from specific questions that learners have asked us, and which obviously created a problem for them at the time and would most likely be a problem again for learners in the same grade.
The questions covered in these videos should ideally be done on paper first, and then...
Using the video-memorandums for maximum efficiency:
- mark the question with the Single Question Quiz (if provided), or
- mark with the video.
- Trace the completed attempt line-by-line until that one line, calculation, law or technique, which caused the wrong answer, is found.
The eTutor
It must be accepted that, no matter how good AI is, it can still make mistakes or not know how to explain something. Or a specific video that is required cannot be found from our database....
Then your child has the benefit (and ADVANTAGE) of falling back on a real Human Tutor!
We call this the facility the "eTutor" and it means we can
- make a video of the question sent to us and list it in our database, or
- make the video quickly using YouTube Live Stream, and add the video to our database later, or
- answer any question directly, since the learner will engage with us via our WhatsApp Chatbot in the report.
What Parents & Students Say
Don't just take our word for it. Here's what our clubmembers have to say about their experiences.
Simple, Affordable Pricing
The XVC Teaching Ecosystem
Way less than the cost of traditional tutoring sessions or once-per-week extra classes!
- Apply to become a member of the FBA Group to qualify for a reduced fee of only R465/month
- Weekly short diagnostic tests
- Our own Over-the-Shoulder AI Tutor
- Our videos
- Access to the eTutor
- Weekly reporting to the parents
Cancel anytime with one month's notice
Frequently Asked Questions
It has its roots in two separate places:
Firstly, Mathematics requires the same training program as an athlete who wishes to run a marathon.
Regular, daily exercise is needed to get fit, and for Mathematics the brain needs to be fit. "Learning" for a Maths test the day or night before is like running a long distance the day before a big marathon, and we can assume that it will not end well!
Secondly we follow "Jimmy's 1% Law " which states: "If you really want to excel at anything spend 1% of your day on it. And 1% of a day is 14 minutes and 24 seconds, so we just round up to 15 minutes....
Each week it will start by doing the diagnostic test. Either the learner stops the test and goes to one of our resources for help or explanations, or does the test and get it marked, so that the comprehensive report for each question becomes available.
The other days of the week any problem areas can be addressed, or just normal homework can be checked and mastered with the help of the OTS Tutor.
Just looking at our video database, though: Except for the Theory videos, which can be considered as "mini extra classes" there are lots of questions that are typical to what can be expected to be done for homework or in tests. Our students are expected to spend 15 minutes each day on working out these questions on paper (with or without using Theory first) and then submit their answers online into the Single Question Quiz, if nothing else is needed for homework or the diagnostic test. The answers of the Single Question Quizzes are then marked automatically and immediately, and then a link to the video-memorandum will be presented. If there was a mistake somewhere in the calculations, the video-memorandums (where every step is explained by the MATHmechanic tutor) can then be watched to trace each step of the original attempt. Preferably the question should then be attempted again, without the video, and submitted again, until the mark is 100%. Parents will get a report each week on all these attempts.
We require a minimum of 15 minutes each day spent on developing some Maths skill, whether that involves the weekly test, using the OTS Tutor or watching video-memorandums. Any more time than this is welcome, of course!
This is an excellent question, and one we hope all parents, and specifically students, will ask!
We believe that the secret to success in Mathematics lies in asking questions, and although the daily routine of searching for real questions can be considered research, and therefore "asking" of questions, we do know that there will always be individual things that students want to know. It could be totally unrelated to a question from the website where they are busy, like a homework question, but we encourage students to ask them anyway!
This is done through either engaging with the Over-the-Shoulder tutor in a conversation, or engaging with the eTutor for a new, custom-made video using YouTube live stream (see here for an example), and if this is still not sufficient we can also schedule an online class.
You have to fill in this form first. Once we receive it, we will make contact on WhatsApp to arrange for a telephone call, to confirm your information (this is a Bank requirement, and cannot be skipped).
This is all that is required! We will provide the necessary instructions on how to create profiles if your child do not have it yet, and how to use the various platforms, and answer any questions you may still have. But once this required telephone call has been made, your child can start!
For the sake of the logistics of the debit order system that we use, we require 30 days' notice to cancel. That is it, just send us a cancellation notice!
Since our focus is on the questions that should be done with pen on paper, and not the videos as such, we report on the completion status of any online tests. Every week the report will indicate the quiz-attempts of the previous 7 days, which will include the weekly diagnostic baseline test, and after that a list of all Quizzes done before for a growing, comprehensive Portfolio of Evidence. Any videos watched will form part of these weekly reports, though.
Our pass-criteria for the various tests is 100%, as anything less tells us that a student still does not understand something, and that is why we request that a quiz be done until it achieves a report of full marks. The report indicates these attempts with each Quiz, namely how many attempts it took to achieve a pass rate. The times and dates of each of these attempts also reflect in the reports.
The weekly diagnostic baseline tests are open between 08:00 on Mondays and 20:00 on Fridays, in order to simulate "exam conditions" and teach the students to be able to work "under pressure". Tshese weekly tests will have one attempt only, unlike the other online tests that we provide. The comprehensive report that is available fo each question of these tests, with all the links to resources and material to upskill, should be used if the outcome of these diagnostic baseline tests are not what it should be, as the topics covered in these tests will appear in future tests and then the student will have the opportunity to prove mastery.
Parents can then keep your fingers on the pulse of whether their children has done their part, and also where things may prove difficult (i.e. the results of the weekly diagnostic tests or the Single Question Quizzes of each video) and provide adult assistance if need be, on how to use the various resources.
You can start on this page and browse the various grades and topics for which we already have videos content. When requests for more videos come in, these videos are added to this database. Then our Over-the-Shoulder Tutor will be able to cover most questions that any learner may have for it.
Yes! At the top of the page there is a button for "Afrikaans" so that you can see this whole page in Afrikaans, and it will also have a link to the Afrikaans questions and videos.
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