Third Space Learning – Closing the attainment gap in maths

“Third Space helps us build pupil confidence in maths

We mainly use Third Space for our Pupil Premium children. They’re a group, at our school, who lack confidence in many areas but particularly in maths. We wanted to close the identified attainment gap and have found that Third Space Learning definitely helps us to do that.

I was sceptical at first…but the difference can be phenomenal

When I first heard about Third Space Learning I didn’t know whether the children would all be engaged in exactly the same lesson, and therefore I couldn’t necessarily see the value of putting half a class load of children into just a one-lesson-suits-all situation. I was also slightly concerned about whether we really wanted our children to be learning from a laptop.

But I went to see it in action at another school and I was amazed at how engaged they were but also at the sheer breadth of the lessons on offer, and that they were highly individualised for those children. I didn’t see two children on the same lesson at all.

It’s particularly benefited some of our SEN learners

We have a number of pupils with ADHD and similar disorders who find it difficult to concentrate normally, but when they’re on the laptop, with the headset and a voice talking to them all the time, it enables them to shut off everything else that is happening around them and they just go for it. They are now our top performing children in terms of the points they receive for their focus and attention and I couldn’t be more proud of them. They’re brilliant!

We’ve seen a really positive impact on our Year 6 attainment

We started with 16 pupils in Year 6, in order to improve their confidence in the run up to the SATs tests. In many cases it definitely helped them to perform even better than we were expecting. Even for those where the impact wasn’t as great we could see that their confidence in approaching the papers was hugely improved, having seen lots of similar questions before in Third Space.

We feel it’s a better way for us to spend our money

From a school perspective if you’re able to have 16 children having an individual intervention lesson at the same time, then that’s definitely better – and a better way to spend money – than having them all taken out one after the other. They have their own tutor on the end of the headset, the child is totally engaged and they have a good relationship with that person. In terms of what they can then come back into class and concentrate on doing…it’s really good stuff!”

If you know the children you want to support, if you have children who are lacking in confidence but who you know have the potential to make more rapid progress, then I would say definitely put them in for Third Space Learning, because the difference can be quite phenomenal!