Helping to close the attainment gap

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.

Making one to one support more accessible for schools

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 3,300 English state primary and secondary schools, delivering online one to one maths tuition to over 120,000 pupils, a significant number of whom are eligible for free school meals.

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Schools supported

160,661

Children taught

1,971,002

Lessons delivered

Designing tuition for the reality of school life

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.

 

 

Growing a global community of tutors

 

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. Third Space Global – our tutor centre in Sri Lanka – was certified as a Great Place to Work for 2020/21.

Our commitment to our tutors:

 

  • Competitive pay: average tutor pay is well above the local graduate average salary
  • Guaranteed income: we guarantee payment per session even if the session doesn’t go-ahead
  • Extensive initial training: our UK team have designed a full-time, 3-week training programme
  • Ongoing development: all tutors receive ongoing CPD, frequent lesson evaluations and personalised feedback
  • An environment to thrive: our tutor training and development team support tutors to pursue their goals and enhance their skills

 

 

Building a programme that makes a difference

 

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.

 

about third space learnings interventions

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:

 

  • Diagnosing individual learning gaps through intelligent assessment
  • Identifying the best sequence of lessons for each pupil
  • Enabling tutors to adapt each lesson to suit each pupil
  • Keeping teachers in control to support in-class teaching
  • Generating and sharing comprehensive reports to help teachers see progress

Providing the best support possible for our tutors and schools

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.

 

 

Working as a team towards our shared goal

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 2,900 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.

Our academic team

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Candida Crawford

Chief Learning Officer

A former teacher with over a decade of experience and a master’s degree in Educational Psychology, Candida oversees the curriculum, pupil experience and our tutor training programme.

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Adella Osborne

Curriculum and Content Specialist

Before joining Third Space Learning, Adella provided maths expertise to schools, local authorities and national and international governments. She now makes sure our primary curriculum is as effective as possible.

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Terri Higgins

Training and Development Coordinator

Terri focuses on tutoring quality and developing our tutors into excellent practitioners. She has 10 years’ experience in primary teaching and is passionate about building a love of learning.

A few more friendly faces

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Tom Hooper

CEO and Founder

Tom founded Third Space Learning in 2013 and continues to drive the company’s social mission to close the attainment gap.

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Alice Morris

Chief Product Officer

Alice ensures we're developing a product that is valuable and effective as possible for the students and teachers that use it.

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Bryan Tookey

Chief Operations Officer

Bryan ensures the team have everything they need to support our schools and pupils each day.

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Rob Langman

Chief Commercial Officer

Rob works closely with our academic and school-facing teams to ensure we’re delivering the best, most effective programme possible.

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Sophie Bessemer

Head of Content

With 20 years' education publishing experience, Sophie makes sure we're creating content teachers need and love.

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Hannah Searle

Primary Content Resource Lead

After leaving teaching in 2019, Hannah joined Third Space Learning to oversee our primary resource production.

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Paul Coffey

Secondary Content Resource Lead

A former secondary maths teacher, Paul makes sure our secondary resource library is full of valuable free resources.

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Lottie Bates

Head of Marketing

Lottie helps to make sure that as many schools as possible know about the support we're able to provide.

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James Gregson

Head of New Schools

Looking to sign up to Third Space Learning? James is on hand to discuss your school's needs and how we can help.

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Jenni Hoy

Head of Customer Support

Jenni is responsible for giving our brilliant customers the best possible experience we can.

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Josie Walker

Customer Support Manager

Josie works closely with our community of secondary schools to ensure no question goes unanswered.

Meet some of the Third Space Global team

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Pasindu Harischandra

Chief Supply Officer

Pasindu makes sure our tutor community and tutor management team are set up for success in their roles.

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Hisham Rafi

Operations Manager

Hisham works closely with the UK team to make sure our customers receive the best customer service possible.

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Jasmiya Jareen

Talent Acquisition Manager

Leading the recruitment team, Jasmiya ensures that the best talent is hired to join our team of global tutors.

And a few of our expert tutors

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Achini Pahalawatte

Maths Tutor

"The three years I spent at TSG have been one of the most fulfilling experiences in my life."

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Hanan Ameen

Online Maths Consultant

"The personal and professional support given at TSG is tremendous."

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Reeshma Rahman

Online Maths Consultant

“The flexibility of choosing our shifts has helped me to have a good work-study balance whilst studying."

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Muhammed Nazeer

Senior Qualified Tutor

"What I love about working at TSG is that there is always something new to learn from the supportive workforce."

Meet our board and investors

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John Loder

Nesta

John brings expertise in social policy, representing Nesta, the UK’s leading investor in social enterprise and innovation

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Richard Lewis

Downing

Richard has a long history of scaling innovative UK tech companies, supporting Downing’s investment in TSL

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Tom Hooper

Founder and CEO

Tom founded Third Space Learning in 2013 and continues to drive the company’s social mission to close the attainment gap

Our story so far...

2013

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.

Third Space Learning Free Maths Resources
2014

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.

Third Space Learning Free Maths Resources
2015

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.

Third Space Learning Free Maths Resources
2016

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.

Third Space Learning Free Maths Resources
2017

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.

Third Space Learning Free Maths Resources
2018

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.

Third Space Learning Free Maths Resources
2019

The Third Space Learning blog, the home for all the latest maths teaching tips, leadership insights and educational news, reached over 3 million views.

Third Space Learning Free Maths Resources
2020

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.

Third Space Learning Free Maths Resources
2021

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.



In May 2021, we celebrated delivering our one millionth one to one maths lesson to Jacob, a Year 6 pupil at Tendring Primary School in Essex.



In November 2021, we celebrated another huge milestone after our 100,000th pupil had their online one to one maths lesson.

Third Space Learning Free Maths Resources
2022

Continuing as an approved Tuition Partner with the National Tutoring Programme, we helped make personalised one to one maths tuition a reality for more schools and pupils than ever before.



In spring 2022 we delivered a record 180,508 online one to one maths lessons to 25,932 pupils in 1,201 primary and secondary schools across the UK.



Building on the popularity of our free maths resources for primary schools, our new free GCSE maths resources reached 40,000 downloads in April 2022. Available free for all teachers, students and parents, these resources help students feel more confident and familiar with the questions they’ll be asked in their exams.

Third Space Learning Free Maths Resources

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