From 14 Pupil Premium places to the whole of Year 6, for one low yearly cost

From 14 Pupil Premium boosters to the whole of Year 6

We’ve had Third Space Learning since I joined the school in 2023. We started by putting in booster sessions for our Year 6 Pupil Premium children, around 14 of them, funded through Pupil Premium, to boost and fill gaps. After SATs we moved some of our Year 5 Pupil Premium children into those spots. We were really happy with it; it was great, and the children loved it.

Cheaper with AI, so everyone gets the chance

This year, with it moving to AI and working out a lot cheaper, we’ve been able to put the whole of Year 6 on it.

Part of the reason we went to everyone was that our greater-depth children were losing out; they’d say, “Why can’t I do it, Miss? I want to do that.” Now they all get the chance. They do three 30-minute sessions a week, and we’ve fed it into the last 30 minutes of the school day so no one has to stay late. We split our 30 children into groups of ten across Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, each with an adult in the room to help with logins or any glitches.

When I found out it was an AI tutor, I was a little sceptical at first, but I can listen in on the sessions, it’s still tailored to each child, and the explanations are clear. It’s been a nice transition from the human tutoring. It also helped that I had a meeting where I got to play around on it as a pupil and listen for myself, that made a real difference.

The benefits over the old model are clear. With Skye, the tutor is always there, so there are no sick days to cover for the tutors, and we can reach far more children for one yearly cost. Funds are always tight in schools, and every penny counts, so if we can get the best for each penny, I’m happy.

Reasoning and mathematical language have come on

One of the biggest differences for our pupils has been in their reasoning: because Skye asks them to explain their method, “Tell me how you’d solve this, and what would you do first?”, they’re having to verbalise their thinking, and that’s come on really well.

Their mathematical language has definitely improved, and there are lots more hands up in lessons. The current Year 6s even recognise the Third Space resources when their teacher uses them in class, “Oh, I did this in my lesson last week.”

I’m still waiting on our SATs results, but we had children bordering on only just working towards at the start of the year who we’re hoping have been pushed into expected, and the reasoning side is already better than it ever was before we had this.

Weekly reports that tell you exactly where each child is

I look at the reports each week to see how many objectives pupils have completed – some work quicker, which is great because they’re going at their own pace. The reports are brilliant: really simple, easy and concise, telling you exactly what each child can and can’t do.

The AI tutoring has met my expectations really well. They’re getting the same quality as they would from a real person at the other end – the only thing missing is the bit of friendly chit-chat at the start.

The main benefit is that it’s an individual, tailored maths learning platform: children learn at their own pace, it fully fills in the gaps in their learning, it’s unique to their needs, and it’s improving their reasoning in class.

Years 3 to 6 next, with self-launch homework

From September our plan is to roll it out across Years 3 to 6 and set the self-launch lessons as homework. We get a lot of parents saying, “We don’t know how you work those methods out, we were taught differently and haven’t got time to sit down with maths.”

With the self-launch sessions, children can simply log in, listen to Skye, and work through it themselves, and teachers can monitor who’s doing what, track progress, and target support at parents’ evening.

We’ve even planned for children without a device at home to use the school’s at lunchtime or in an afternoon club, so we’re reaching everyone. The support available is also great, whenever I’ve needed help the team has been very accessible, and I’d happily recommend it.