From Traditional Tutoring to AI Tutoring: Helping More Pupils Catch Up In Maths

Since the beginning we’ve believed in the power of one to one support to help close the attainment gap. But over time, we started to face a difficult truth: the one to one support we provided wasn’t reaching all the students who needed it. And the attainment gap in maths is as large as ever.

In 2023/24, the maths attainment gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students stood at 18 percentage points in Key Stage 2. By GCSE, this gap had widened to 26 percentage points, with only 39.8% of disadvantaged students achieving a strong pass in maths. These figures show that, despite significant effort and investment, too many pupils are still falling behind – particularly in the context of stretched budgets and growing teacher workloads.

For over a decade, Third Space Learning has helped schools address these challenges through one to one online maths tutoring. And, while traditional tutoring remains a highly effective intervention, it’s no longer feasible for many schools to deliver it at the scale required to close the attainment gap.

That’s why we created Skye, not to replace what works, but to provide one to one maths support for even more pupils.

Why it’s harder to make traditional tutoring work in schools

Maths gaps remain significant but school budgets are tighter than ever, and there simply aren’t the additional staff members available to provide one to one support. Traditional tutoring and interventions continue to be effective, but many schools are now struggling to afford them at the scale needed to help every pupil catch up and close the maths attainment gap.

After the pandemic, the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) helped schools offer specialist one to one support to more pupils than ever before. But when NTP funding ended, the budget pressures returned – while the need for personalised support remained. The attainment gap didn’t go away.

Inevitably, some pupils are now going without the one to one support they need.

If schools and tutoring providers want to offer high-quality subject specialist support to all the pupils who need it, we need to think more creatively.

Skye, the conversational AI tutor, created specifically to tutor primary and secondary school students in maths is our response to this challenge. 

What a decade of tutoring insights told us had to change

Quality first teaching is undoubtedly the best way to help students progress. But for those who need extra support, one to one tuition is the best intervention strategy (EEF). 

And for over a decade, we’ve seen first-hand the positive impact personalised one to one support can have on pupils’ educational outcomes.

But we’ve also seen the barriers schools face in scaling this support:

• Traditional one to one tutoring, while effective, is hard to schedule and even harder to afford at scale
• School leaders are forced to decide which pupils get help, and which don’t
• Demand outstrips supply, especially when budgets tighten and funding falls away

We realised that if we were going to continue making a dent in the attainment gap, we couldn’t just do more of what we’d always done. We had to do things differently.

AI tutoring: helping us support more pupils, more equitably

In December 2023, our academic team and teaching experts began working on an idea: could we bring the impact of one to one tutoring to more pupils, at lower cost, without compromising on quality?

That idea became Skye – a conversational AI tutor grounded in real classroom pedagogy. Skye doesn’t replace teachers, it extends their reach and impact on pupil learning.

Skye gives pupils a consistent, responsive learning experience. It uses the same structured teaching approach as our traditional tutoring, including “I do, we do, you do” modelling, scaffolded support and real-time formative assessment,

However, unlike traditional tutoring, it can run at any time, for any number of pupils, without schools having to worry about cost per session or tutor availability.

Built by teachers, backed by pedagogy

One of the first questions we asked ourselves when developing Skye was this: What makes our one to one tutoring work so well? 

The answer wasn’t just the presence of a traditional tutor but how those tutors were trained to teach. We knew that to replicate that success at scale, the foundations of teaching and learning had to come first.

That’s why Skye was built by our team of teachers, curriculum designers, and maths experts using everything we’ve learned from delivering more than 2 million live lessons to over 170,000 pupils. 

Every Skye session follows the same structure we know works:

• Explicit modelling and guided practice
• Formative checks for understanding throughout
• Carefully scaffolded steps to reduce cognitive load
• Encouragement of mathematical reasoning

How Skye mirrors traditional tutoring

Many AI tutoring tools focus on generating questions or automating marking. But Skye is a voice-based AI tutor, not text-based, and is designed to mirror the reasoning and interaction that happen in high-quality tutoring. 

Pupils speak their thoughts aloud and Skye responds in real-time. It adapts teaching using prompts, rephrasing questions and providing scaffolded hints, just like a traditional tutor would.

This approach builds maths fluency, confidence and independent thinking. And, it’s built on the same classroom-tested pedagogy we’ve developed for over a decade.

Rethinking what’s possible in one to one tutoring

Since the end of the NTP funding, schools have told us the same thing again and again: We know tutoring works. We just can’t afford to do it for everyone who needs it.

This is where Skye makes the difference.

By removing the constraints of timetabling, tutor availability, and per-session costs, we’ve created a model that schools can use as much as they need, without compromise.

• Sessions can start every five minutes – before, during or after school
• There’s no limit to the number of pupils supported simultaneously
• Pricing is fixed, so schools can add more pupils or sessions for no extra cost
• Lessons are consistently structured and quality-assured

Skye offers a new kind of flexibility, one that meets the needs of schools while maintaining high standards. Every pupil deserves a consistent, structured path to progress.

“This innovative one-to-one maths tutoring solution offers a cost-effective alternative to traditional one-on-one tutoring.”

Chris Harris, Deputy Head,
Admirals Academy

Common concerns about AI tutoring and safeguarding

Of course, we understand that bringing AI into the classroom raises valid questions.

At Third Space Learning, our approach to AI is always teacher-led, pedagogy-first and safety-aligned.

• All Skye sessions happen on a secure platform, approved and scheduled by schools
• Every interaction is recorded, and safeguarding alerts are automatically flagged and reviewed by our team
• All content is created by our academic team – nothing is left to chance

AI should never replace teachers. But it can ensure no pupil misses out on the support they need. It should be a tool for equity giving schools the ability to reach more pupils with high-quality support, without sacrificing safety or standards.

Why human-led AI tutoring is a sustainable solution for the future

The evolution from traditional to voice-based AI tutoring isn’t about replacing teachers or tutors. It’s about freeing up teachers to do what they do best while ensuring no pupil is left without the support they need to thrive. Skye brings together everything we’ve learned over the past decade into a flexible, affordable model that can scale across schools. 

Skye represents the future of scalable, personalised learning support. By making high-quality one to one tutoring accessible to every pupil who needs it, we can make significant progress in closing the attainment gap.

It’s a tool that takes the best of what we know works in teaching and makes it available to more learners than ever before. It doesn’t ask schools to change how they teach, it works alongside their existing priorities. And it’s grounded in the values that have defined Third Space Learning from the start:

• Equity
• Expertise
• Respect for the teacher’s role
• A deep understanding of how children learn

Our mission hasn’t changed. But the tools we use must evolve if we’re serious about reaching every pupil who needs us. With Skye, we’re one step closer to making that vision a reality.

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