From starting with Year 6 to reaching all of Key Stage 2 in under a year, with 251 pupils tutored

Making the most of every chance to practise maths

We’re based in Crewe, in an area of high deprivation, and 52% of our pupils are pupil premium. We have some incredible families, and some parents ask how they can help, but the maths their children are learning often isn’t how they were taught it themselves. Our children don’t always have many opportunities to do maths outside school, so building on their prior knowledge is a big focus for us.

Maths is going well. We use White Rose Maths from Year 1 upwards, and every child has four Mastering Number lessons a week alongside their maths lesson. Attainment across school is significantly higher than it was three years ago. We’re still below national at Key Stage 2, though: 67% of our pupils reached the expected standard last year, against 75% nationally. This year’s forecast is significantly higher.

We saw it working in a school in London

We visited a school in London, in an area of high deprivation like ours, whose results were remarkable, to see what they were doing differently. Their Year 6s had an extended day until four o’clock, and some of those after-school sessions were SATs boosters on Third Space Learning. We saw it and thought it was brilliant.

I was fully on board with AI, but it was met with some worry from other members of staff when they heard the words. We tried Skye with some of our children for two weeks, then held a staff meeting to show what a typical session looks like, what it’s capable of and how we could monitor it. Every member of staff is on the rota for our after-school sessions, so everybody needed to be familiar with it. It went down really well.

One year group first, then the whole of Key Stage 2

We started in January with our Year 6s, who used Skye twice a week from 3:15 till 4:00 as part of their extended day. It worked really well for us. We didn’t even contemplate doing it in any other year group initially. I wanted staff to be confident with one year group and then build it up.

In the summer term we did a mass onboarding. Over about two weeks, teaching assistants took children out whenever they could, just to log on with no pressure. So when September came, everybody was already set up and we didn’t have to worry about accounts. Every child in Key Stage 2 has an account and has seen it at least once, which means that I can go to anybody and say “log on and do this objective”, and they can do it.

A quiet space for every year group

Our morning intervention runs from about 8:50 to 9:15 across Key Stage 2. The children come in, say good morning to their teacher, pick up their headphones and an iPad, and log on. Timetable and space were the biggest barrier, so each year group has its own solution. Our Year 6s use the multi-purpose room with a teaching assistant, Year 5 use a communal area outside their classrooms, Year 4 have a spare classroom and Year 3 have their own corridor that’s tucked away.

Devices were less of a problem, as we have 90 iPads across the school and the morning groups are small, around six children from each class. Nearly all of our sessions are self-launched. They have to be back in class for English at 9:15, and our device clocks aren’t all in sync, so scheduled sessions could run over. With self-launch the children can pick it up, log on and go straight away.

We had a few teething issues at first, where children would log on and couldn’t hear or wouldn’t speak, and a couple of times last year Skye wouldn’t pick up what a child was saying halfway through a session. This half term it’s been very good.

A bespoke intervention, not one size fits all

We target the morning intervention at our working towards children, the ones who are close to the expected standard but aren’t there yet. My Year 6s started the year on Year 5 number and place value, to make sure those foundations were secure before they moved on to the Year 6 work. Then the teacher chooses the programme that best suits each child.

It’s allowed us to have a really bespoke intervention throughout school and it’s not one size fits all. Historically, schools have taken a group of working towards children and given them all the same intervention. Now, in a typical session, I can say I want child A to do this objective, child B to do that and child C to work on this. One teaching assistant can supervise a group working on potentially 10 different learning objectives, all of which benefit those children. That would be impossible otherwise. As great as our teaching assistants are, subject knowledge isn’t always their strength, especially in Upper Key Stage 2. One of our assistants had only worked in Lower Key Stage 2 or Key Stage 1 before moving up this year, and they haven’t got to worry about subject knowledge because it’s all done for them.

Same-day support for any child who needs it

In my Year 6 class we were doing long division and a fairly able boy really found it difficult. That afternoon he was able to go on Third Space Learning and practise it again. Our afternoon sessions are for same-day intervention or pre-teach.

It can be done at the drop of a hat. Some children will ask for it themselves: “Mr Jones, I found this difficult, can I do Third Space this afternoon?” I can get several children to do a session in an afternoon without having to worry about who’s going to take it.

Why unlimited matters to us

We have some brilliant online programmes for reading, but we pay per permit, and I think that puts a ceiling on it. Why would you pay for a permit for somebody who might need it once or twice a year? The fact that everybody can access Third Space means we can really exploit it for its benefits. That boy might not need it an awful lot this year, but he can access it when he does.

From a little bit alien to second nature

I remember my first session with the Year 6s. Even some of the more vocal children didn’t really want to speak, and it felt a little bit alien to them. Now it’s second nature. They put their headphones on, get their jotter books out for their working and just crack on with it. There was one girl who used to thank Skye after every single session.

You can see that warming up in their ratings, which went from an average of 3.7 out of 5 in January to 4.2 since September. Children definitely refer back to it in class too, saying they’ve done something on Third Space.

Something to offer parents who want to help

We don’t set it as homework, but at parents’ evening some parents ask how they can help. The biggest barrier for those parents is that it’s not how they did it when they were younger. So we advise them that their child can log on to Third Space Learning, and that it’s not just practice questions, it will actually teach them. A small group of pupils now log on in the evenings and at weekends.

Green shoots across Key Stage 2

Our Year 6s were a lower-attaining year group, and to achieve 65% was a celebration. It took loads of hard work, but I think our data could have been significantly worse without Third Space Learning. I feel like it had a massive impact.

We’ve not seen the impact across the whole of Key Stage 2 yet, as we only started universally this September, but the green shoots are coming through. Since January, our pupils have had 4,741 sessions with Skye. Across those sessions, pupils answered 41% of check-in questions correctly at the start and 81% of check-out questions correctly at the end, and 91% ended feeling as or more confident than when they started.

Shrinking the working towards group

Our Year 6s go back on their extended day this January, with 45-minute sessions from 3:15 till 4:00 twice a week. Some children could have a morning intervention session and another one after school. If we could get all our working towards children to expected it’d be unbelievable. If we can shrink that group piece by piece, everything else improves.

Invest in the set-up and start small

I think it’s really important to invest in the initial implementation and make sure staff are clear on it before anything’s done. Then get the children on, in a no-pressure way, before you rush into interventions. We really hit the ground running this half term, and I feel that was down to the groundwork we did in the summer term.