JOHNNY BALL: THE SECRET EQUATION BEHIND TEACHING MATHS? MAKE IT FUN!

TV legend Johnny Ball says the key to getting more kids to enjoy maths – is making it fun.

The presenter was commenting after the Prime Minister announced he wants kids to learn the subject up to the age of 18.

Rishi Sunak announced the plan as part of a wide-ranging speech in east London earlier today (Tuesday).

But Johnny, who has masterminded and presented more than 20 children’s television series about maths and science, told GB News there was a simpler answer.

He told GB News: “You’ve got to make maths interesting. People always learn what they want to learn. And if they don’t get the germ to want to learn, then you’re wasting your time anyway. So, what you got to do from the very start is make maths interesting right from primary school through until now.

“I’ve got a row of books, oh, I don’t know, about six feet long on my shelves of maths books and books that make maths interesting. And I would willingly have studied maths up to 18, but not the curriculum maths. I wouldn’t want to study the curriculum today because the curriculum is mundane. It’s lacks spark, it lacks interest, it lacks the ability to hook the student and that’s what you have to do.”

Commenting on what he dislikes about the current curriculum he continued: “It is so thin. It’s so uninspiring now. All the books on my shelves were written by people who were inspiring about maths because they loved maths. Very often they were magicians. Very often they loved card tricks. They loved all kinds of ways of enjoying maths and making it fun. And that’s the way to do it. And that’s what I do and why I still go to schools today. Once a kid is inspired and wants to know more about any subject then you can teach that subject no problem at all. But once they dig their feet in and say I’m not keen on this, I don’t want to learn this anymore, you’ve lost them. You will not get through to them.”