The Story
How and why aitutors.me was built — the methodology, the technology, and the choices behind it.
Built for One Daughter, Sharing with Yours: The aitutors.me Story
Why aitutors.me was built — the origin story behind the AI tutoring service designed for over-scheduled UK secondary students.
What Is Energy-Aware Tutoring? The GREEN/AMBER/RED System Explained
Energy-aware tutoring adapts session intensity to a student's weekly energy state. aitutors.me uses a GREEN/AMBER/RED traffic light. Here's how it works and why it matters.
What Is the Socratic Method in AI Tutoring?
The Socratic method in AI tutoring means refusing to give the answer and guiding through questions. Here's how aitutors.me's Professor Pi implements it for KS3 maths.
Personality-Adaptive Tutoring: How an AI Gets to Know Your Child
Personality-adaptive AI tutoring uses a student's interests and strengths to shape every analogy. Here's how aitutors.me's student-context profile works.
Why aitutors.me Is Built on Claude (Anthropic)
We picked Anthropic's Claude as the model behind every aitutors.me tutor. Here's the technical reasoning — safety, instruction-following, MCP support, and Constitutional AI.
The Show Your Working Protocol Explained
Show Your Working is a tutoring protocol where the AI diagnoses student errors at the line they appear. Here's how aitutors.me implements it.
Why We Built a Tutor Into the Browser
aitutors.me started life inside the Claude app. Here's why I built a second front door — a tutor that runs in the browser with nothing to install — and why it's the same brain, not a second product.
Why We Reward Effort, Not Correct Answers
The most important decision behind Heddy Points was what NOT to reward. Here's why I made effort, not correctness, the thing that earns points — and why that quiet choice shapes the whole tutor.
The Term Compass: Why We Plan Learning by the Term
Daily targets break the moment life happens. The three-year plan is too far off to feel. Here's why I built aitutors.me's learning plan around the school term — a light direction families set together, not a contract.
The Bloom 'Two Sigma' Problem: Why One-to-One Tutoring Actually Works
Benjamin Bloom's 1984 'two sigma' study found one-to-one tutoring lifts the average student above 98% of a conventional class. Here's why KS3 classrooms can't do it — and what changes that.
Step Size: The One Adaptive-Learning Metric That Actually Matters
Step size is how much harder the next question is than the one your child just answered. Get it right and a KS3 student stays engaged for 20 minutes without being asked. Get it wrong and they quit.