5 Ways Schools Are Using AI Tutoring To Reach More Students For A Lower Cost

Find out how principals and math department heads are slotting AI tutoring into the school schedule in a variety of ways all aimed at achieving better outcomes in math. With Skye, the AI tutor who talks and responds to your students, there’s no limit to the number of lessons and students it can teach math to at any one time. Since the start of 2025, students have spent over 5,000 hours talking math with Skye the new AI math tutor at a fraction of the cost of traditional online tutoring.

Skye is built on the same principles and by the same team of current and former teachers who have created Third Space Learning’s online one-to-one tutoring programs for schools since 2013.

It replicates the experience of a traditional online math tutor, offering adaptive, dialogue-driven one-to-one teaching where students communicate with their tutor via a shared screen and a microphone headset. In other words, ‘voice tutoring’.

But to match schools’ challenging budgets, we’ve been able to make it much more affordable.

We know that this is still a new concept, so here we’ve collected the five most common reasons and use cases schools give us for running AI tutoring with Skye in their school, so you can see how your students and staff can put it to work too.

1. Ease of scheduling weekly one-to-one slots – before, during or after school

According to research by the Educational Endowment Foundation, regular one-to-one tutoring has excellent evidence for improving student outcomes, providing on average five additional months’ progress.

Evidence also shows that the most effective tutoring:

• is in short, regular sessions
• runs for a set period of time
• explicitly links to class teaching
• is monitored for progress by teachers

This is how schools have used online one-to-one math tutoring with Third Space Learning since 2013: picking a time slot that works for their students and scheduling tutoring to run one or more times each week for the students they feel need it most.

Math lessons tailored to the school and the students’ needs

Just like our traditional tutoring, AI tutoring sessions with Skye are built on human expertise and tailored to each student while still enabling teachers to control the content covered. This means schools can use their regular, scheduled tutoring sessions in a variety of ways:

• Address individual gaps and math misconceptions
• Focus on specific strands, concepts and topics
• Align with class teaching
• Pre-teach tricky topics
• For test review

What changes with Skye? More students and more flexibility

With AI tutoring from Skye, schools can continue to use tutoring in this way, but with increased ease and flexibility, and for more students at a lower cost.

No matter how many sessions each school needs, there’s just one low fixed yearly price, depending on school size.

Scheduling AI tutoring

Previously, all Third Space Learning tutoring sessions took place with one of our community of STEM specialist tutors, meaning we needed to factor in the scheduling of both the student and the tutor. As such, tutoring time slots were available on the hour and the half hour.

We don’t need to worry about Skye’s schedule as the voice tutor can start up every 5 minutes – whenever works best for the school.

Schools can use AI voice tutoring to build their own custom tutoring schedule that fits into their school calendar, student and staff needs, and quarterly or semester-based school events.

It’s allowed us to get more children onto the programme because it’s so affordable and flexible. No need to start the sessions on the hour or half hour. We can do after-school slots on Mondays and Thursdays, a group at 10:15 on a Friday and one at 1:35 on a Wednesday. Plus, if we need to reschedule a session, we don’t need to worry about their usual tutor not being available at the new time. It’s always Skye, no matter the time. That’s the beauty of it.

David Gooding, Assistant Head,
Harrison Elementary School, Fareham

2. Intensive review in the lead-up to state assessments and SAT/ACT

Of course, tutoring is most effective as a long-term solution rather than a ‘quick fix’, but the reality remains that many students would benefit from more intensive support as exams draw closer.

When tests are looming, schools often want to increase the number of their sessions but before Skye, this could be difficult to organize and it would add to their annual cost.

Now, with on-demand AI tutoring for a fixed annual payment you can double or even triple each student’s weekly sessions in the spring and summer terms for zero additional cost. Schools can provide more sessions each week without paying any more. It’s all included in the fixed low yearly cost.

This means no more last-minute orders, juggling who gets the extra help, or compromising on the requirements of each student. You could even give every borderline student a personal math tutor right up to the day of the exam. It really is that flexible.

3. Ad-hoc cover sessions when staff are absent

Staff absences have shot up in recent years, leaving leaders scrambling for last-minute cover.

This is one of the most commonly cited challenges for principals and math department heads. Because Skye is available every 5 minutes you can launch a one-off tutoring session using AI math for any class that is without its usual teacher and students can continue to receive high-quality teaching.

Practically, what happens is that students who have previously had sessions with Skye continue with their learning journey as normal, and any new students receive a quick introduction from Skye before moving on to their chosen program.

4. Set homework sessions with Skye (coming September 2025)

Most take-home tasks still rely on paper worksheets or auto-graded quizzes that can’t diagnose why a student is struggling. From September 2025, Skye will bring the same one-to-one conversations students enjoy in school straight to their kitchen tables – giving them a tutor’s guidance even when you’re not there.

Because Skye is only ever teaching lessons that have been created by math teachers like you, you can be reassured that the feedback and support given is accurate and age-appropriate. This is very different from other AI tools that simply provide a right or wrong answer (and sometimes they don’t even do that well) without building the student’s understanding.

Homework developed in partnership with schools

It’s really important to us that every new feature is built in collaboration with schools to ensure it:

• complies with FERPA and your district’s student privacy policies;
• integrates seamlessly with existing Skye progress reports;
• keeps teacher workload to almost zero – no grading, no manual uploads.

These are the options we are working on:

• Teacher-scheduled sessions – you choose a day and time; Skye appears in students’ headphones just like an online lesson.
• Self-launch windows – set a homework ‘slot’ (for example, any time between 4 pm and 7 pm); students start their session when it suits family routines.
• Always-on catch-up – for older classes, give students controlled freedom to launch Skye after school whenever they hit a tricky topic.

We’re thrilled to be at the forefront of using Third Space Learning’s AI voice tutoring. This innovative one-to-one maths tutoring solution offers an even more cost-effective alternative. The children have thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and their engagement and focus are clearly evident.

Chris Harris, Deputy Principal
Norfolk

5. As an instructional aide for additional math interventions

While tutoring is predominantly used as a math intervention for the students who are most in need, there’s no reason why schools can’t use tutoring for a wider cohort of students.

While you or your teacher focus on whole-class instruction or a specific group, Skye can be used to give any number of students their own personalized math intervention. At no extra cost.

Because Skye is AI-driven, it never has to split its time. Ten, twenty or fifty students can all receive individualized tuition in the same lesson slot for the same fixed annual price, instead of eating into your staffing budget or paraprofessional hours.

Making the most of Skye for your students

With Skye each child:

• Works on the exact gap you (or Skye’s diagnostic) have identified – they never have to follow the same lesson as the student next to them.
• Gets true one-to-one attention the whole time – Skye listens, questions, gives hints and nudges them forward just like a skilled human instructional aide.
• Stays perfectly in-sync with your curriculum – every lesson comes from the teacher-designed Third Space Learning library.
• Finishes with instant feedback you can use immediately – progress and misconceptions are logged in real time, ready for their next classroom lesson.

At a time when schools are under pressure to do more with less, solutions like Skye offer an efficient, scalable option that works alongside existing classroom support to help close gaps and keep all learners on track.