Christopher Chen

The lockdown across Greater Sydney has created a large barrier between students and high quality OC & Selective Test preparation. With all classes moving online, traditional large group learning styles have become less effective while Alpha One’s approach has risen above. Our small group classes, high teaching standards and updated curriculum for the new OC & Selective Test have really stood the test of this pandemic and demonstrated why Alpha One is one of the fastest growing tuition centres in Sydney, with almost 2000 enrolments each term across our two branches despite only starting in 2017.

HERE ARE THE 3 MAIN REASONS FOR OUR SUCCESS AND WHY 83.7% OF OUR 2021 SELECTIVE COHORT RECEIVED AN OFFER:

Reason #1: Small Group Classes

Alpha One’s classes are run in small groups of 7 or 8 so that our tutors are able to work closely with the students and understand their academic needs while keeping the lessons engaging. 

In large group classes, students are likely to be lost amongst the sea of other children and will often find it hard to ask questions when there are 20-40 other students fighting for one tutor’s attention. Tutors of large group classes will also have a poorer understanding of your child’s strengths & weaknesses and will most likely not be in a position to help guide you on what your child needs to be well prepared for the OC/Selective Test.

Reason #2: Parental Feedback

After every class at Alpha One, parents have the opportunity to chat with the tutor to discuss their child’s progress. Having graduated from top selective schools such as James Ruse and Baulkham Hills, all Alpha One tutors are well equipped to provide advice and understand the OC & Selective school system like the back of their hand. During this chat, parents can also seek guidance on what they need to do at home to ensure their child is making the most of their study time, such as focusing on specific areas of weakness. 

Many other tutoring centres, on the other hand, do not provide these services and leave parents completely in the dark about their child’s education and progress.

Reason #3: Updated Curriculum

As of 2021, the OC & Selective Test have been completely revamped. With the introduction of countless new question types, many of the past resources have now become outdated and are no longer relevant to the OC & Selective Test. 

Any parent who has been following us in the past year will know that Alpha One was one of the first tutoring centres to make the change from General Ability to Thinking Skills. We pride ourselves on our high quality, up to date resources and pay very close attention to announcements made by the Department of Education which is why so many parents trust us with their child’s education. 

With our updated curriculum, new topics such as Cloze Passages, Detecting Reasoning Errors and Identifying Assumptions are all covered in depth and students are taught the most efficient way of approaching these new questions types.

Unfortunately, many tutoring centres and online resources are still preparing students with the old curriculum without parents' knowledge. For example, some centres continue to teach old topics from the General Ability section such as anagrams, jumbled sentences and vocabulary despite changing their course name to Thinking Skills. On the other hand, Alpha One has refined our syllabus each year based on changes to the exam which ensure that our students spend their time on materials that are relevant to the actual test.

Published 28 August 2021