AI Tutor vs Mathswatch for KS3: Which Helps More?

Mathswatch is a subscription video and exercise platform used by many UK secondary schools to support KS3 and GCSE maths. It provides video explanations and online questions with automated marking. An AI tutor replaces video with dialogue, guiding students to answers through questions rather than worked examples.

What is Mathswatch?

Mathswatch is an online maths platform providing video lessons and practice exercises for KS3 and GCSE maths. Each topic has a short video — often three to ten minutes — explaining the method, followed by a set of online questions with automated marking. The platform tracks student performance, and teachers can assign specific clips and exercises for homework.

Mathswatch is sold primarily to schools, which in turn give students login access. For many UK secondary school students, Mathswatch is the video platform their maths teacher uses to set and monitor homework. Students access it through their school credentials rather than a separate family subscription.

What Mathswatch does well:

Video explanations for every major KS3 and GCSE maths topic

Practice questions with automated right/wrong marking after each video

Teacher-assigned tasks with completion tracking visible to the teacher

Organised by topic number, making it easy to navigate to specific areas

Accessible on most devices; provided through school at no direct cost to families

Useful for students who learn well by watching worked examples before practising

What Mathswatch does not do:

Explain in a different way if the original video explanation does not land

Respond to the student's specific wrong answer with targeted feedback

Cover subjects other than maths

Identify the underlying misconception from a pattern of errors

Support discussion or open-ended mathematical reasoning

What does an AI tutor do differently?

Mathswatch shows how to do maths; an AI tutor asks how the student is thinking about maths. This is a fundamentally different teaching approach, and it matters most at the moments when a student genuinely does not understand.

Take a student who cannot apply the cosine rule correctly. On Mathswatch, they watch the clip, see the formula applied in a worked example, and then try the exercise questions. When their answer is wrong, they see "incorrect" and can rewatch the video. But if the student's error stems from a misremembered rearrangement of the formula — not from failing to understand when to use the cosine rule — rewatching the same video will not fix the specific error.

An AI tutor takes a different approach: "You've correctly identified that you need the cosine rule here. Can you show me how you set up the formula?" The student writes out their setup; the tutor identifies the specific rearrangement error; and the explanation targets exactly that point rather than the whole method from scratch.

What an AI tutor adds:

Dialogue that identifies the specific point of error in the student's reasoning

Different explanations for the same concept when the first approach does not work

Multi-subject support: maths, English, science, history, geography

Ability to respond to free-form questions like "Why does this formula work?"

Guided practice that prompts the student rather than showing the answer directly

Where Mathswatch is stronger:

Video walkthroughs of specific techniques for the KS3 and GCSE curriculum

School integration with teacher-set tasks and progress tracking

Often free for students via school subscription

Large topic library covering every maths topic from KS3 through GCSE

Structured by topic number — easy to locate specific content quickly

Side-by-side comparison

Criterion | Mathswatch | AI tutor (e.g. aitutors.me)
Cost | School-provided (free for students); individual plans available | £14/month
Teaching method | Video explanation + automated exercise marking | Socratic dialogue
Subjects | Maths only | Full KS3 curriculum
Feedback on errors | Right/wrong; option to rewatch video | Dialogue to locate the specific misconception
Adapts to the student | Topic navigation only; explanations do not adapt | Full adaptation to the student's reasoning
School integration | Yes — teacher-assigned tasks and tracking | No
Best for | Video-based technique demonstration; volume practice | Understanding why errors recur; building conceptual grasp

The honest case for Mathswatch

Mathswatch is a reliable, school-aligned resource for maths technique revision. Its videos are well-organised and thorough, its topic library is comprehensive, and its place in many school homework systems means students who use it are working on the right content for their year group. The fact that most schools fund access directly means the cost to families is zero.

For students who are broadly on top of a topic and need to practise technique — expanding brackets, finding areas of compound shapes, solving simultaneous equations — the video-plus-exercise format is efficient and appropriate.

Where an AI tutor fills the gap

The limitation of video-based learning is that a video cannot respond to you. A student who watches the same clip twice and still does not understand is not getting new information — they are seeing the same explanation in the same order, at the same pace, regardless of where their confusion actually lies.

An AI tutor's conversational approach changes this: rather than re-presenting the whole method, it finds the specific point where the student's understanding breaks down and addresses only that. This is particularly valuable for topics where students develop confident but incorrect methods — areas of compound shapes, for instance, where students often believe they are doing it right until a tutor probes their reasoning and reveals the error.

Frequently asked questions

Is Mathswatch free for students?

Mathswatch is purchased by schools and then provided to students free of charge. If your child's school uses Mathswatch, they will have login credentials through school. If the school does not use Mathswatch, individual or family subscriptions are available, though most families do not purchase these independently — they tend to use Mathswatch only when their school provides it. If you are looking for a home maths resource that does not depend on school access, there are several alternatives worth considering.

How is Mathswatch different from Hegarty Maths?

Both Mathswatch and Hegarty Maths provide video lessons and practice exercises for KS3 and GCSE maths, and both are used by UK schools as homework platforms. The key differences are in their school integration features, their video style, and their question formats. Hegarty Maths has a more adaptive question system and more detailed topic progress tracking; Mathswatch tends to have a simpler, more straightforward structure. Both ultimately share the same limitation: they explain by showing rather than by asking.

My child is on Mathswatch for school but still doesn't understand some topics. What should I do?

If your child watches the Mathswatch clip for a topic and still cannot answer the questions correctly, the video explanation is not resolving their confusion. This is the right moment to use an AI tutor: rather than a third or fourth viewing of the same video, the AI tutor can ask your child to explain their thinking, identify the specific error, and work through it from that point. Once the misunderstanding is resolved, returning to Mathswatch for volume practice is then effective.

Does Mathswatch cover Foundation and Higher tiers?

Yes. Mathswatch provides separate video clips and exercise sets for Foundation and Higher tier GCSE content, and its topic numbering system distinguishes between the two. Students should confirm with their teacher which tier they are entered for (Foundation or Higher) so they are practising the right set of topics for their examination.

For Socratic maths tutoring that explains why — not just how — visit aitutors.me.