Morland Primary School share their Third Space Learning story...

Hello everybody. As I've just been introduced, I'm Will. I'm currently working as a LSA in Moreland Primary School. We are a school of about 400 pupils in Ipswich. We're on an estate in the town and we have higher than national levels of pupil premium and free school meals. So obviously there are a lot of challenges that that brings and that has also made coming into the lockdown difficult. So I really hope that I can give a fairly unique perspective on how we've approached it and have been using the ntp.

That's great. Thanks, Will. I wonder how did Moreland Primary hear about the NTP and also if you could tell us a bit about why you decided to participate in it.

Okay, so the national tutoring program, sort of the specific provider that we are using is Third Space Learning and they provide individual one to one online math tuition. We've previously used them about four years ago to give tuition and when we heard that they were participating in the NTP we thought it was a really, really good use of that NTP funding to go with them because we had a really good experience with them previously. We heard about the ntp. It was not actually me who made this decision, it was made above my head. But the deputy head informed me that he heard about it through an email. He received some email and then on sort of the various channels that he's part of, they were discussing it, local schools nearby. And we realized it was a really good deal. So something that we wanted to get involved with. Yeah. So we picked Third space just because maths is something that was recently highlighted to us as an area that we need to improve in. And the fact that they allow targeted intervention over a large range of years, it can go down to year one to year six, but we're just doing three, four, five and six at the moment. And also they allow for intervention across the whole spectrum of abilities. So we've been able to select pupils not just who are lower ability and need lifting up, but also higher ability pupils who just need kicking up to the next level where they may have lost a bit of confidence over the previous lockdown.

That's great. And I wonder if you could tell us a bit about how you found adapting to online at home tuition that the NTP is able to provide.

I'd say adapting was. It was not very difficult. All that we really needed to do was phone around all of the parents whose children were planning on doing it in school and ensure that they have the adequate technology at home. But as I said, obviously because of the area that the school is in, unfortunately quite a lot of parents and quite a lot of homes don't have adequate computers, stable WI FI connections, good environments for learning to take place in. So what we really needed to do is we, after we found out who the pupils that we were going to be putting forward for tuition, after we highlighted those, we needed to phone round each individual parent, obviously get consent for them to take part, but then also ascertain whether they would need us to provide WI fi dongles, computers, headsets and stuff. So we did that and then what I actually personally did because although it's really easy to get online onto the tuition program with it being done at home with parents who may not be, sorry to say, the most technologically literate, I made a couple of guides and I made some videos to really make it sort of very simple for them to ensure that their children is able to get online.

Sound like really, really useful resources and guides that you put together will to help to help parents access this at home. That's really great to hear. I wonder if you can just kind of tell us a bit about the impact that the tutoring is having on some of your pupils.

Obviously we've only been doing it since the start of term, so we don't really have any hard assessed evidence of the impact that it's had. But it seems from sort of a surface perspective, but they're all really, really enjoying it. It's actually something that they all can't wait to do because it being one to one, they've really started to develop a relationship with their individual tutor, which the kids really enjoy and so they're all really enjoying it. And it's seeming that all of the topics that are being taught to them, they're all understanding and it certainly seems like progress is being made, which is really.

Definitely. That's great to hear. And then I wonder finally just, well, if you'd be able to kind of provide any top tips, I guess, for schools who are interested in participating in online at home tutoring through the ntp. If you had any tips or advice for schools.

Well, first of all, I would say definitely take advantage of seems to be really beneficial and the children are really enjoying it and getting a lot out of it. I would say that obviously the main barrier will be technology at the moment. So it's really, really important that you ensure that every single person who does it not only has the technology at home, but they also have the right environment at home to make the best use of it. You know, it can be a really simple thing to, you know, the room does need to be quiet for them to do it in, and the WI fi does need to be fully stable. But once that is, once you've gone beyond that, I would say that the only thing that we've been doing that has been really helpful is sort of constantly monitoring, using Thirdspace's online portal, whether people are online for their tuition session or not. And then if they're not online, we will immediately be phoning up at home, just. And it usually only takes a little prompt to get the parents to just, you know, ensure that their child attends their session, which is really good. And we had something like 97% attendance, which is absolutely fantastic and probably better than school attendance, so no complaints there.

Oh, that's great to hear that you've had such high attendance and that it's working really well for your pupils. Well, thanks so much for sharing your experience with us today, Will. It's really brilliant to hear how tutoring is supporting your pupils. And in addition to the webinar today, Will has really kindly collaborated with us to write a school story, which is going to be uploaded to the NTP website later on. So please do visit the website to read Will's story and a range of other case studies from across the country. We're always really, really keen to hear from schools and to add more school stories to our website, as they really do bring the NTP to life. So if your school is interested in featuring in a case study, please do reach out and get in contact with us. And thanks again.