“We saw good progress with the tutoring. It’s tailored to the child, more flexible, and significantly cheaper”

We originally signed up to Third Space Learning’s tutoring in September 2022 to address learning gaps in children who need that little bit of extra maths support, particularly for Year 6 and the SATs papers.

Looking at the data, I know that for two years, the children who have had the tutoring have improved more than if they had not been using Third Space Learning.

In autumn 2024, Third Space Learning offered us the opportunity to be one of the first schools to test out the AI tutoring for our Year 5s. 

Of course, I wondered if the AI programme would be as successful and if the children would engage as well, but it was significantly cheaper, and I liked the extra flexibility of being able to do it whenever we wanted. 

Trying to line up school timetables, access to the computer room, and available tutors was always a bit tough. With the AI tutor, you can just log in and start the session. It’s easier and more user-friendly for a teacher now when it comes to planning.

The majority of our pupils liked learning with Skye, the AI tutor. They enjoyed it and they looked forward to it. They could see the benefit they were getting from it.

The Year 5 teachers said that they could see that the children were happier in certain topics and that they felt a little bit more sure of themselves. And as soon as that confidence starts to grow in one area, they take that confidence into the next area. 

We saw such good progress with the Year 5s over the autumn term, so we put our Year 6s on in the spring. We also saw the AI tutor improve a great deal; it got quicker and was even better at listening to the pupils.

I’d also love to use it for our greater depth children. Often, those pupils don’t get as much input because they can already ‘do it’, but I think the AI tutor could really push them further with more word problems and more reasoning. 

And now that we’ve got unlimited access, why not use it for more pupils and in more ways? Especially now that we’ve got the flexibility to do it whenever we want. 

We can also use it for same-day interventions. If we have a group of children who haven’t grasped a concept in their morning lesson, we can take them out and get it sorted with Third Space Learning in the afternoon.

It’s significantly cheaper than before when we had 20 sessions a week and we were paying per session. Now, because it’s unlimited across Year 4-6, we’ve got 90 pupils per year group who can have multiple sessions per week for just £6,000 per year. 

The tutoring follows the CPA approach, which is great for children. Each objective is broken down into small steps so that they can really understand it. It doesn’t move on too quickly; if they haven’t achieved an objective, it can be revisited, and they don’t move on until it’s right for them. Not all of the children have to follow along at the class pace; it’s at their own pace.

To anyone else considering Third Space Learning’s AI tutoring, I would say it’s tailored to the child, it’s flexible, and it’s a good price.

Watch an AI maths tutoring session in action:

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