Darts and maths come together as Wolverhampton schoolchildren enjoy fun session with stars of the game
It was a morning for youngsters from a Wolverhampton school to have fun and learn about darts and maths with the help from a professional player.
The 11 Year 6 students from Northwood Park Primary School were able to play darts games and practice their maths skills as they took part in the Bullseye Maths event at WV Active Aldersley in Wolverhampton.
The venue is currently hosting the Professional Darts Corporation's (PDC) Grand Slam of Darts, a week-long tournament featuring 32 of the best players in the world, and hosts two of the Bullseye Maths sessions each year, which the PDC introduced in 2022 to encourage numeracy in a fun and inclusive way, with an online portal at pdc.tv/maths accompanied by in-school sessions.
The first session saw the youngsters take part in theory-based exercises and practical games promoting numeracy skills, with a bit of health competition between two teams, then four teams.
Games included the highest cumulative score, the first to hit the white and the black on the board three times and, as a final competition, hitting gradually smaller pieces of paper.
They were joined at the session by Connor Scutt, who will be playing a second round match in the Grand Slam on Thursday against Josh Rock, and who was happy to show the schoolchildren how he throws a dart and ways he learned how to practice his scoring, as well as help them with how they were throwing the darts.
There were cheers of encouragement from the Bullseye Darts team members, as well as the PDC staff helping run the event and the teachers from Northwood Park, one of whom said the session was totally different to what she had thought it would be, while the children also got to come down the players walkway and stand on the stage inside the arena.
Connor said he thought the sessions were a great idea as it was another way and a fun way to learn darts and said that his own experiences in his family of learning difficulties meant he was happy to support programmes like Bullseye Darts.
He said: "This sort of thing is really important as my sister-in-law has got Dyscalculia, which is a bit like Dyslexia, but for maths, and not really widely recognised and some children have got number anxiety through Dyscalculia, so stuff like this really helps kids feel really comfortable with maths and it's really important.
"I thought some of the kids this morning were great and really good at maths and they all had really nice throws as well, which I wasn't expecting, so I think they might be on stage in a few years time.
"These programmes are all very important as it's all about giving back to the next generation and we're seeing a lot of younger faces in the game and I think it can only do the game a world of good."
Gary Horsley was the main leader for the session and works as full-time Director of Community & Education Projects for the Junior Darts Corporation and said he thought the session had been a great success.
He said: "I thought it went really well and it was a surprise with the number of children because we normally get around 30, but the smaller numbers made it better for us to get to know the children a bit more.
"When I was asking at the beginning, none of the children played darts and a lot didn't like maths and thought they were here for a maths exam, so we had to break down that barrier straightaway, then we adjusted the session for smaller groups and they were hitting targets, then we introduced maths and it all went great.
"It's all about getting that confidence level and letting them know that it's ok to make a mistake and if you do, then we can help you afterwards, but some of those children were really good and I always say that if you start with success, you can tackle more sessions afterwards, and that's what we did today."
