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We founded Third Space Learning in 2013 with the goal of working in partnership with schools to make one to one maths tuition accessible to those children with the greatest need.
We’re a team of teachers, curriculum and product designers, social entrepreneurs, and tutors. We’re headquartered in London, but work across England, India and Sri Lanka. What unites us all is a shared mission to help close the maths attainment gap.
Traditionally, tuition has been the preserve of a fortunate minority, not necessarily those children who needed it the most, be that academically or socially.
We wanted to help address this imbalance.
Since 2013, we have made great progress towards our goal. We have worked with tens of thousands of teachers in over 2,500 English state primary schools, delivering online one to one maths tuition to over 75,000 pupils, the majority of whom are eligible for free school meals.
Schools supported
Children taught
Lessons delivered
We knew we had to start by making tuition affordable within the reality of limited school budgets. We also knew we needed to be able to deliver tuition at a scale that could reach the hundreds of thousands of children who have the greatest need of one to one support.
A central part of our solution is to recruit high-quality maths tutors from across emerging markets – notably India and Sri Lanka – where there is a huge population of passionate, well-educated English-speaking graduates and undergraduates who love maths.
All our tutors go through an extensive training programme before they begin, and receive regular and ongoing training and CPD.
We are really proud of our tutors and the work they do to support our schools, and are committed to providing them with a great place to work and competitive pay. In fact, our tutor centre in Sri Lanka, Third Space Global, is certified as a Great Place to Work.
Our commitment to our tutors:
We know that high-quality tuition doesn’t end with simply recruiting high-quality tutors. That’s why our UK team works to ensure we’re developing an effective and comprehensive tuition programme that is as supportive as possible for the schools and pupils that use it.
We’re constantly monitoring and improving our programme to ensure it follows best practice, fits with the school environment, allows teachers to easily reinforce their class teaching strategies and makes a positive impact on our pupils.
We’ve worked with UCL to develop a framework for the ideal one to one lesson and continue to develop an easy-to-use platform that helps schools raise maths attainment by:
We believe in investing in our tutors and all the work that goes on behind the scenes to make a great tuition programme.
For every session purchased by schools, about half of the cost goes to recruiting high quality tutors, developing and delivering the best possible training to ensure they’re able to support our schools, and providing them with the daily academic and operational support that they need to succeed and thrive throughout their career.
The rest is invested in curriculum development, technology, customer support, safeguarding and operations; all the things that help to ensure our UK team can make the programme as helpful and effective as possible for the pupils and schools who use it.
Ultimately, all of us at Third Space Learning, irrespective of our role or location, are working towards a common goal: closing the maths attainment gap by helping those children in English classrooms with the greatest need.
While we have a long way to go, the evidence from the 2,500 schools we have worked with, and our role in the National Tutoring Programme, suggests that the work we are doing is welcomed by teachers and schools and is making a real difference to the children we support.
Tom founded Third Space Learning in 2013 and continues to drive the mission and vision forward
Bryan ensures the team have everything they need to support our schools and pupils each day
Sam makes sure the Third Space Learning platform is as valuable as possible for the schools that use it
Rob supports the teams that work most closely with our schools, ensuring we're delivering everything we can
As an ex-teacher, Candida oversees the curriculum, pupil experience and our tutor training programme
Another ex-teacher, Bethan manages the secondary curriculum, content and tutor support
After leaving teaching in 2019, Hannah joined Third Space Learning to oversee our resource production
Lottie makes sure that as many schools as possible know about the support we're able to provide
Looking to sign up to Third Space Learning? James is on hand to discuss your school's needs and how we can help
Jenni is responsible for giving our brilliant customers the best possible experience we can
New to Third Space Learning? Sharon will help you get set up and ready for your first session
Josie works closely with our community of schools to ensure no question goes unanswered
Shiyamal oversees the entire operations at TSG, making sure our tutor centre in Sri Lanka is as effective as possible for our pupils
Susan ensures the team at TSG have everything they need to be the best tutors possible
Hisham works closely with the UK team to make sure our customers receive the best customer service possible.
Leading the recruitment team, Jasmiya ensures that the best talent is hired to join our team of global tutors
"The three years I spent at TSG have been one of the most fulfilling experiences in my life."
"The personal and professional support given at TSG is tremendous."
“The flexibility of choosing our shifts has helped me to have a good work-study balance whilst studying."
"What I love about working at TSG is that there is always something new to learn from the supportive workforce."
Third Space Learning was founded in London and a small team began working with schools to help close the maths attainment gap through scalable and affordable one to one teaching.
To help achieve this goal, we set up our first tutor centre in India, connecting passionate, bright English speaking tutors with the pupils in the UK.
And so began the Third Space Learning story, delivering the first of many one to one maths lessons to the children who need it most.
A year later, we opened a second tutor centre in India to help meet rising demand and increase schools’ access to high-quality maths tutors.
In our early stages, we participated in the Education Endowment Foundation’s (EEF) trial of ‘Affordable Online Maths Tuition’. This helped to shape our intervention into what it is today. You can view the results here.
We worked with UCL to develop our framework for the ideal one to one maths lesson to ensure our lessons were effective as possible.
Two years after we started, we opened Third Space Global in Sri Lanka, giving us a central place to oversee all tutor recruitment, training and day-to-day academic operations.
NESTA, the UK's innovation agency for social good, became our first investors, with the aim of exploring the potential of remote one to one tuition to support primary age children at risk of underachievement in maths.
With a few years’ experience behind us, we took part in an Independent Trial with Rising Stars, using PUMA tests, and pupils made 7 months' progress in 14 weeks.
To ensure our schools were able to support all their staff and pupils, not just those signed up for the one to one lessons, we created the Third Space Maths Hub, an online resource and CPD library to support KS1 and KS2 maths teaching and learning.
Just 5 years after we set out on our mission, we had delivered half a million online one to one maths lessons to over 42,000 pupils in 1,500+ schools across the country.
The Third Space Learning blog, the home for all the latest maths teaching tips, leadership insights and educational news, reached over 3 million views.
We started an evaluation with What Works for Children’s Social Care to generate evidence and improve outcomes for children in care.
As children across the country began learning from home, we worked closely with our schools to ensure as many pupils as possible could continue to benefit from their weekly online lessons and supported over 5,000 pupils throughout the first round of school closures.
In November, we were selected as an approved National Tutoring Programme Tuition Partner and began offering heavily subsidised one to one maths tuition to schools in England.
To support schools through another round of closures, we kept the Maths Hub full of home learning resources suitable for both parents and teachers; by 2021, over 70,000 teachers and 17,000 parents had signed up.
As part of our mission to support as many schools and pupils as possible, we launched a new one to one GCSE Maths Revision Programme and free GCSE revision resources.