Often, being good at maths comes down to confidence. I have seen in the past, once a child begins to struggle with a particular maths topic which doesn’t resolve itself quickly, they can start to loose confidence in their maths ability. This can cause long term ongoing problems in the subject. One solution is to get the school to help. Unfortunately in Jaygo’s case the school hadn’t realised how bad the problem was before it was too late. Suddenly Jay was descending through the ability streams faster then Archimedes running through the streets after his eureka epiphany. It was up to me as his parent to figure out what to do. Much to Jay’s disgust I enlisted the help of a tutor- Kitty a teacher and friend who agreed to visit once a week. He asked me to get a list of topics Jay’s maths teacher felt he struggled in. I was horrified to receive a list as long as my arm. How had it gotten so bad without this problem being flagged earlier? There was no simple answer but one thing was for sure, the only way was up. As Kitty began to tutor Jay he realised that he needed start with the maths basics to rebuild a strong foundation in Jaygo’s maths knowledge. The problem was Jay forgot what he had learnt from one lesson to the next. Kitty had to find a way to help Jay with his recall. Then he had this eureka moment-darts. Every lesson he and Jay play darts. It’s brilliant. Jay’s mental maths ability is improving week by week as is his recall and hand eye coordination. Through playing darts Jaygo is simulating the cerebellum part of the brain. This is the section which deals with short term memory and coordination and is often underdeveloped in dyslexic, dyspraxic and children suffering from adhd. The proof though is in the testing. At school Jay received better the average marks in his end of term tests. That is a move from bottom of the class to above  the middle. All thanks to Kitty and his inspirational game of darts.