Huanui College, a New Zealand school teaching Cambridge IGCSE and A Level programmes, now uses Tutopiya's AI Buddy learning platform across five grades, with 275 students and 30 teachers on about 300 licences, according to a February 2026 case study by Tutopiya. It is AI Buddy's longest-standing school partnership, running for more than three years.
The school's problem was limited tutor availability and a lack of suitable teaching resources, especially for specialised subjects and exam preparation aligned to its Cambridge curriculum. It wanted something that could scale across grades and subjects without more human tutors and that would fit into classroom delivery rather than replace teachers.
The partnership moved through four phases: one-to-one tutoring lessons for students who needed them, then transferred credits on a digital platform, then a pilot of about 60 students in 2025, and finally integration across IGCSE Years 9 to 11, AS Year 12 and A2 Year 13. AI Buddy is supplied as a white-labelled platform carrying Huanui College's branding and logo and linked from the school website. Teachers assign homework through it, track student progress and use it as the focus of classroom work.
Content and features were shaped by the school. Tutopiya added six subjects the school asked for and prioritised content to match how its teachers deliver the Cambridge courses, based on one-to-one sessions with subject heads and regular contact with the Deputy Principal. Two features came directly from that feedback: a Test Builder that lets teachers create assessments aligned to their curriculum, and a Scan and Upload function for marking essay-type answers. The case study does not describe the AI models behind the platform or report learning outcomes.
Details
- City
- Whangarei
- Organization
- Huanui College
- Continent
- Oceania
- Country
- New Zealand
- Category