Secondary · Sheffield · 1366 pupils

After 15 weeks, tutored students improved 1.19 grades, 0.46 more than peers

“Students improved 0.46 more of a GCSE grade than those who didn’t have sessions.”

After 15 weeks, tutored students improved 1.19 grades, 0.46 more than peers
Andy Appleford, Maths Director, Chorus Education Trust Westfield School, Sheffield
+1.19 grades average improvement after 15 weeks
+0.46 more than students without the sessions
45 minutes of really productive revision each week
1173 students on roll
This case study is from our human tutoring, the tutor-led one-to-one programmes we ran before Skye, our AI maths tutor. Skye is built on the same principles and the same one-to-one approach, using insights from 2,295,000+ tutoring sessions like these.
Figures reported by the school in the original case study, from our human one-to-one tutoring programmes
Measured impact

What Westfield measured

Measure Result
Average grade improvement after 15 weeks of weekly sessions +1.19 grades
More than students without the sessions +0.46 grades
GCSE working grades analysed by the school’s maths teacher after 15 weeks of weekly one-to-one sessions, compared with students who did not have the sessions. Reported by the school in the original case study. Tutor-led one-to-one sessions, before Skye, our AI maths tutor.
The challenge

Showing students that revision works

It shows them that revision works and it’s worth spending their time on. Having that feeling of success is crucial.

Part of the battle with students – particularly the ones who have been underachieving for a long time – is showing them that by working and revising they will be more successful. Creating that culture of success around revision is essential.

The biggest impact of Third Space Learning was showing pupils that we care about them and that they’re important enough to put on something like this; we think it’s worth them spending that time revising because we care about what they’re going to get.

I like the way you do the assessments at the beginning and then the follow up ones at the end. They can see that they’re getting better at it.

They then achieve levels of success and they see for themselves that revision works. It gets students to have a weekly check in, and a chance to feel successful in doing that – that has a big impact.

It made them realise that this one session a week isn’t their full revision, it’s just an aspect of it, which led them to revise more.

The set-up

Easy to run at a consistent time every week

I’ve done this in the past with another provider but I found it too complicated – I always spent the first 20 minutes sorting problems. With Third Space Learning it was easy.

What worked really well was that it was a consistent time every week. They would go to a computer room and sit with me or someone else – and another good thing is that it didn’t always need to be me.

When they have their headphones on, they’re very conscientious. As soon as they’re on, that 45 minutes of revision is really productive.

The free headsets were brilliant, we just plug them into the USB and they always work. Plus we got sent plenty which was great.

The work they were completing was of a really good standard. The explanations were really clear and the visuals were really good. It’s purposeful and useful revision led by a tutor who knows what they’re talking about and who can engage with the student.

What changed

After 15 weeks, an average improvement of 1.19 grades

I analysed our data to look at the progress that the students made. After 15 weeks, the students improved 1.19 of a grade on average, 0.46 more than those who didn’t have the sessions.

I remember really clearly one student in set 3 who hadn’t got a 4 the whole time. We did 3 mocks and he never got one. He turned up to every session and would regularly say thank you after… and then he got a 4 and it was brilliant!

We actually put some in who were on grade 5 to try and get them to a grade 6. Because there’s so many gaps in prior learning, even the students on the higher curriculum couldn’t do some of the things on the early parts of the paper. It was really good for gap filling.

“I analysed our data to look at the progress that the students made. After 15 weeks, our students improved 1.19 of a grade on average, 0.46 more than those who didn’t have the sessions. The work they were completing was of a really good standard. It’s purposeful and useful revision led by a tutor that knows what they’re talking about and who can engage with the student.”

The recommendation

If I could I would put this on for every student each week

Even your most able students really benefit from going over that recall. The least able ones and the least likely to revise will be shown that revision works, has an impact and that we care about them. To get a regular one to one session like this is amazing.

Andy Appleford, Maths Director, Chorus Education Trust, Westfield School

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