5 Reasons Why Thousands Of Schools Choose Third Space Learning As Their Tuition Partner

We believe in the strength of our team, the strength of our model, and the strength of our curriculum. We are always striving to better understand our customers.

Through our conversations with hundreds of senior leaders in our community, we have learned more about what teachers want, taken on feedback, and continue to refine a programme that will seamlessly fit into your school.

So, why should you choose Third Space Learning as your trusted tuition partner for maths? Let’s dive straight in…

1. Rapport with maths at its core: tutors build positive relationships with pupils where learning is at the forefront

As teachers, you know that building rapport with pupils is more than just a ‘nice thing’ to do. It enhances student learning. It fosters a positive learning environment where learners are motivated, engaged and supported. It can also improve student attendance which is essential!

There’s a balance between building rapport, and just chatting. Much like teaching time, tutoring time is critical. Having spoken to hundreds of schools, we know that some Senior Leaders have been worried that other providers focus too much on chatting, leaving less time for learning.

Here at Third Space learning, we want our pupils to feel supported, while also getting right into covering maths content from the off to make the most out of their dedicated tuition time.

Unlike other providers, pupils learn with the same tutor every session. Pupils communicate with their tutors via a headset and a shared screen. Our audio-only approach removes the distraction and pressure of someone on camera, and encourages a learning-centric environment where rapport is built into the maths lesson itself (rather than general unstructured chit-chat!)

Tutors use a range of strategies and features of the online classroom to build that all important rapport with pupils, such as praise stickers.

They have such good relationships with their tutors. They have the same tutors throughout their lessons, so the relationship can build and grow.

Lauren Hearn, Maths Coordinator, Brooklands Farm Primary

We recently made a number of improvements to our maths tuition programmes. This includes the new high-quality gaming headsets (which have been a big hit with pupils!) that are provided free to schools receiving tuition. We also updated our audio technology to reduce potential technical issues. These improvements minimise disruption and improve tutor/pupil connection, allowing maths talk to flow.

Tutors are also provided with the pupil’s first name, age and interests ahead of their first session together so that they can further personalise their individual learning journey. Teachers can also provide notes for the tutor about how best to work with each pupil and any Special Educational Needs (SEN) or English as an Additional Language (EAL) requirements.

Read more: Accessible Online Learning For Pupils With SEN

We are overjoyed when we receive feedback from our pupils and hear about the positive relationships built through maths between tutors and pupils. Our tutoring boosts confidence in and changes attitudes towards maths, which in turn has a real impact on student outcomes.

2. Personalised programmes: pupils’ gaps are identified and addressed from their first lesson

One-to-one tutoring inherently allows for personalisation, but some schools have reported that other providers use a generic package of work. This can be off putting for pupils who feel that the content has not been tailored to them.

At Third Space Learning, we develop bespoke learning journeys that not only identify gaps in student learning, but also the misconceptions that are holding them back. Each pupil starts with a diagnostic assessment to identify these. We call this ‘Mission Zero’.

Each of the questions in Mission Zero relates to a single Learning Objective, mapped to each of the 500+ Learning Objectives in our online tuition curriculum. Our carefully selected multiple choice answers are designed by our in-house Curriculum Team and include one correct answer and three deliberate distractors to identify common misconceptions, meaning we can gain better insights into what areas are blocking pupil progress.

The results from Mission Zero inform the tailored selection of Learning Objectives pupils will cover in their sessions.

Their journey doesn’t end there.

Post-session questions further diagnose outstanding gaps and adapt the subsequent Learning Objective sequence. Pupils will revisit key concepts that may be holding them back, but won’t waste time covering content they’re already secure in.

We then give teachers a choice: they can select the ‘Diagnostic Programme’, whereby lessons are automatically selected to plug individual gaps based on the results of each pupil’s assessment. That means one job ticked off the list.

Alternatively, they can choose the ‘Teacher Selection’ programme, where they can select lessons from our curriculum each week to complement whole-class teaching or target specific topics. With this option, they’ll still be able to see the results of the assessments to help inform lesson selection.

With both programmes, teachers will always have access to on-demand individual pupil progress reports which detail:

• The lesson objectives pupils have completed;
• What they have struggled with;
• What took longer to complete.

These can easily be downloaded, printed and shared with parents or colleagues.

For secondary students, these reports can be especially useful for metacognition and taking ownership of their learning. We find that many students are keen to identify their own areas for development when they understand that the sessions are designed to fill their learning gaps through a structured programme, which will ultimately lead to success in their upcoming GCSE exams.

3. Content quality assurance: lessons are centrally created and constantly updated by UK mastery experts

Our curriculum is developed by maths teachers and pedagogy experts. All of our dedicated Curriculum Team are former teachers with decades of experience in the classroom and a current knowledge of evidence based teaching methods.

They are obsessed with the latest pedagogy and are constantly monitoring and improving our programme to ensure it:

• Follows best practice;
• Aligns with the national curriculum and other widely used schemes of work;
• Allows teachers to easily reinforce teaching strategies used in the classroom;
• Uses a wide range of models and images to promote conceptual understanding;
• Accelerates pupils’ progress.

For example, the lessons themselves follow a distinct structure that is grounded in research and promotes articulation, reasoning and discussion. The curriculum is broken down into smaller steps, with scaffolded slides, allowing tutors to pitch at the appropriate level for the individual pupils and their gaps.

We are proud of our high-quality lessons and coherent programmes that help thousands of students understand concepts, improve their mathematical thinking and experience a sense of accomplishment

Candida Crawford
Head of Academic Standards and former primary school teacher

4. Tutor toolkit embedded in pedagogy: tutors receive extended initial training and ongoing CPD

Equally important to the lesson content and design is its delivery.

It’s for this reason that our tutors at Third Space Learning are all high-quality graduates and undergraduates with strong academic backgrounds in STEM subjects. All our tutors have a genuine passion for maths and education and undergo rigorous background checks – only 2% of applicants are accepted onto the programme!

Whilst other providers only require tutors to undergo several hours of training before they begin, the best online tutoring websites, will have tutors undergo extensive initial training. Third Space Learning’s tutors must train full-time for 3 weeks before they begin tutoring. The training is designed by our Curriculum Team and centred around UK teaching standards and practice. It involves webinars, practice lessons, observations and coaching sessions.

At the end of initial training, tutors must pass a series of assessments before delivering their first lesson. If they do not pass, they receive additional guidance and support to ensure they’ve reached the required level before working with pupils.

While they work with us, they receive ongoing training and CPD – this ongoing provision provides tailored training to tutors at different points in their Third Space Learning journey so that their skills are developing and improving continually. Our training programme is constantly evolving and growing to meet changing needs, and tutors are coached regularly in how best to apply any new training to their practice.

We firmly believe in providing quality continuous professional development that helps tutors deliver to the best of their ability. When developing training courses, we keep current UK teaching methods at the core, building on recent research and evidence-based pedagogical approaches, to ensure that we train passionate and knowledgeable tutors that can make a difference.

Terri Higgins
Training and Development Coordinator and former primary school teacher

Read more: Secret To Effective In-School Tuition: Your Tutors

5. In-school specialists: we understand the challenges facing schools and how best to support teachers

Over the last 9 years, we’ve supported over 3,300 schools and 125,000 pupils across both primary and secondary. Our experience in schools and understanding of the challenges they face means we design tuition for the realities of school life. 

Time is a precious resource for teachers.

Our Product Team is constantly thinking about how to keep improving the design and structure of our teacher onboarding journey to make set-up even more quick and efficient.

Our Customer Support Team is also on hand to support you from the moment you sign-up to sessions. Each school has a dedicated Account Manager who will:

• Guide schools through the onboarding process;
• Troubleshoot any issues that may arise;
• Be on hand to ensure the smooth running of your tuition.

We know that flexibility is key for schools, and we have designed our tuition to account for this. Schools choose a regular time slot between 8am to 3:30pm that fits in with their school day, and things like half terms are built into our schedule. Schools are free to swap to a new timeslot if it no longer works.

In the event of pupil absences (which we know can happen), our team is happy to rearrange for a more suitable day and time. Alternatively, pupils can easily be swapped in and out of sessions on our platform by teachers.

In addition to our one-to-one tutoring, we provide support to our community of over 100,000 teachers and school leaders through free, high-quality classroom resources in our Maths Hub.

The Premium Maths Hub provides full access to our library of over 4,000 KS1 and KS2 resources and is included at no additional cost with all tuition programmes. Most importantly, this helps teachers to raise maths attainment for all pupils in your school, not just those receiving the tuition. Everybody wins!

The best solution for your school

There’s no one-size-fits-all ‘best’ tuition option, but we build flexibility, curriculum and personalisation into our programmes; from logistics and set-up, to the individualised learning journeys our pupils receive.

This is why hundreds of SLT choose to work with Third Space Learning as their maths tuition partner, year after year.