Four years of renewals, and the whole school on it by the fourth

Every year we ask whether we still need it

We’ve had Third Space Learning for years, since before I even started, and every year we ask ourselves whether we still need it, and every year we decide we do.

We run other interventions too, like Number Stacks delivered by our TAs, but Third Space Learning is far more personalised; it genuinely tutors what each individual child needs. It’s hard to attribute progress to any one thing when children are being taught maths in class as well, but the pattern is clear: the children who use Third Space Learning are the ones making the accelerated progress we’re looking for. We basically can’t not keep it going – it just works.

The move to the AI tutor

When it moved to the AI tutor, my first thought was simply, “Oh, interesting, how’s this going to work?”, but it’s been a real step forward. One of the biggest issues we’d had with the previous tutors was the language barrier and technical difficulties – children sometimes couldn’t understand or hear the tutor properly. The feedback now is that pupils find the AI much easier to engage with, hear, and follow.

I also love that we’re not tied to set timings: children can self-launch sessions and use it far more often. Having that support readily available at any time, without needing a specific person there ready and waiting, was a real selling point for us.

Targeting the children who'd otherwise be missed

As Pupil Premium lead, I fund it through Pupil Premium, so we always look at our PP children first – but that doesn’t always mean they’re the ones who need it most. We tend to target the children who are just below age-related expectations: the ones who’d otherwise get missed. They’re not low enough to be getting daily interventions, but they need that little boost to get them up, and from there, some go on to greater depth.

The logistics are genuinely easy

The logistics are genuinely easy. Our Year 6 TA takes the children to the library with their Chromebooks, they do their session, and then go back to class. We run it with Year 6, then move it into Year 5 for the summer term, and this year we’ve broadened it to look at Year 4 as well.

It’s easy for me to log on and manage, and when the summer term gets busy with productions, trips and residentials, I can simply rebook any missed sessions – that flexibility is brilliant. A few pupils have even started using it at home.

Engagement has been really good. The children love it and are fully engaged. What’s great is that if a child isn’t benefiting, we can swap them out and put another child on in minutes – it’s very simple. That makes all the difference: you target the children who need it, but if it’s not the right fit, you can change things around. For some of the children who don’t usually like extra interventions, the fact that it feels like being “on the computer,” with the headsets, engages them far more than sitting down with a worksheet.

I asked the children for a bit of feedback, and they told me things like, “When we were taught this, I’d heard it before and could explain it,” or “I recognise that because we’ve done it in a lesson.” They’re making connections and talking about maths more, which is lovely to hear.

The progress is measurable, but we haven't run a comparison

And the progress is measurable: every year, before we renew the contract, we look at the progress the children have made – and they’ve all made the expected or accelerated progress and reached age-related expectations. There’s never been a child who hasn’t made the progress I’d have expected.

The AI tutoring has met my expectations completely. Engagement and lesson progress, how much the children get through in a session, have actually increased. The language it uses, the way it’s presented, and the visual elements all work really well for them; they genuinely enjoy it.

Rolling it out across the school

The main benefit is the individualised learning. We can set specific programmes for what each child needs, but even without that, it tailors itself to the child and goes at their pace. The fact that I can now roll it out across the whole school is incredible. The resource hub is brilliant too, lots of our teachers use the Fluent in Five and daily maths challenges.

The biggest highlight is simply that the word gets round and children ask me, “Can I do Third Space?” The fact that they’re enjoying it enough to tell their friends, and that other children then want to do it, says everything. Pupils actually want to do the maths, which makes all the difference.

With a big group and a TA it can get chaotic, but with Third Space Learning every child gets individual tutoring, is fully engaged, and works on exactly what they need, at the pace they need. I’d absolutely recommend it.