Rob LangmanChief Commercial Officer at Third Space Learning

What Is AI Tutoring? A Guide To AI Tutoring In 2026

Name: What Is AI Tutoring? A Guide To AI Tutoring In 2026
Uploaded: 2026-03-06T15:07:14+00:00
Duration: 2 min 5 s
Channel: Rob Langman
Description: In this video, Rob Langman explains Third Space Learning’s concept of AI tutoring, which is a spoken, one‑to‑one mathematics tutoring system called Sky…

6 Mar 2026 · 2 min

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2:05

In this video, Rob Langman explains Third Space Learning’s concept of AI tutoring, which is a spoken, one‑to‑one mathematics tutoring system called Sky. Unlike generic chatbots, Sky delivers high‑dosage, structured lessons that are aligned with the National Curriculum and are delivered through a headset. The system mirrors the proven human‑tutor model that the company has refined over a decade in more than 4,000 schools. Sky asks questions, listens to student reasoning, and provides scaffolded prompts when mistakes are made, ensuring students think critically rather than receiving instant answers. The content stresses the risk of cognitive offloading with AI and describes how Sky is designed to keep pupils actively reasoning throughout each lesson. All lesson content is authored by teachers, and teachers retain control over which students receive tutoring, what topics are covered, and when sessions occur. By automating the delivery of one‑to‑one tutoring, AI tutoring can scale to support every student who needs extra help, addressing the large maths attainment gap while fitting within tight school budgets.

Chapters

There's a lot of talk about AI tutoring right now. Here's what we mean when we talk about AI tutoring at Third Space Learning. We mean spoken one-to-one maths tutoring. This is actual one-to-one tutoring, the kind that Education Endowment Foundation research shows promotes real progress. Not a chatbot, not instant answers. What works is high-dosage, structured, National Curriculum-aligned programs integrated into the school day. Keeping teachers in control of what is taught and when. That's what we spent a decade doing with human tutors across more than 4,000 schools. That's what we've built our AI tutor, Sky, to do. A student sits down with a headset and Sky talks them through the lesson, asking questions, listening to their reasoning, and adapting teaching in real time. If they get something wrong, Sky provides a scaffolded instruction or question targeted at the specific mistake to get them thinking critically, reasoning, explaining, and asking questions, not to hand them the solution. One of the biggest risks with AI in education is cognitive offloading— pupils letting the technology do the thinking for them. We've built Sky to do the opposite, ensuring pupils are thinking and reasoning at every stage of the lesson. Every lesson is written by our teachers. Sky delivers it, but the pedagogy comes from a decade of learning what actually works. And teachers stay in control, choosing which students, which topics, and when during the school day sessions will run. Every school knows which students need more one-to-one support. The problem has never been identifying them, but finding the capacity to provide support. AI Tutoring means we can now offer support to every student who needs it, not just the few students schools can afford. Given the size of the maths attainment gap and the pressure on school budgets, AI Tutoring offers an effective and sustainable solution at a time of significant need.