Seven Year 11s to start. Now 21 spaces and Year 10 practising early

One of the challenges we were facing as a school was with independent learning and revision

There was variation in the work being done outside of the school. It meant lots of our students weren’t getting that practice.

The trust recommended Third Space Learning’s maths tutoring as a few other schools had signed up. I’d heard of Third Space Learning because I’d read lots of the blogs and we’d used the free GCSE worksheets and the predicted papers so we decided to give it a go.

The tutoring was initially one of our Pupil Premium strategies. We started with 7 Year 11s who were quite far off their target grade and really needed some extra maths. Now we have 21 spaces.

Third Space Learning gives us a personal maths tutor that our selected students can work with each week. And, because it’s the same tutor each time, they can build that relationship. Their confidence has definitely improved.

Getting set up was straightforward

Getting set up was straightforward, including enrolling the students and having them complete their initial diagnostic assessments.

The delivery of the free headsets was so quick and each time we added more students Josie our Account Manager always got new headsets in the post straight away.

Teachers impressed by how engaged the students are

Our maths teachers have all seen the tutoring sessions in action, and they’ve all been impressed by how engaged the students are in the session.

“Staff all commented on how the students were having to explain their thinking. You can hear that the tutors really dive into ‘why did you do that?’ and ‘can you explain your answer?’. It was really nice to hear the mathematical language in the room.”

The conscientious grade 2 to 3 students really took to it

We look at the metrics in the reports to monitor attendance, tutor feedback and how the students are rating the sessions.

We found that our low-ability but hard-working girls in particular really took to it. The ones who weren’t quite bottom set, but grade 2-3, who were conscientious and wanted to do better.

We offered it out more widely to all Year 11 classes that were working at grades 2-4 and then, once our Year 11 cohort started their exams, we switched to Year 10.

We offered it to everyone except our top set as they’re already working at grade 7+. Again, we found the girls in particular really took to it – the ones at the top end of foundation.

Starting Year 10 early, ready for Year 11

For Year 10, having this opportunity to practise exam-style questions with their own one to one tutor will be a big help as they head into Year 11; the earlier we can get them practising things like this the better.