The Professional Darts Corporation’s award-winning Bullseye Maths programme has received a huge boost this week as TV personality Rachel Riley joined in the fun during the World Darts Championship.
Renowned maths whizz Riley – a National Numeracy ambassador – put her addition and her aim to the test as she joined PDC referee Kirk Bevins at Alexandra Palace along with 28 local children from Lea Valley Primary School on Wednesday December 18.
The PDC’s award-winning Bullseye Maths scheme promotes numeracy, with sessions featuring numbers-based games and worksheet activity to engage primary school pupils with maths and darts. Alongside an online Bullseye Maths portal on the PDC website, popular in-school sessions have been developed and run by staff from Nottingham College’s Room 180 Academy to encourage maths learning through a combination of numeracy exercises and darts-based games.
The programme has been a huge success after it was introduced in 2022 after studies found that numeracy levels amongst children had been affected during the Covid-19 pandemic – with sessions including one on National Numeracy Day in May which was supported by World Champion Luke Humphries and teenage superstar Luke Littler.
Wednesday’s session at Alexandra Palace came during the sport’s biggest event as pupils got the chance to experience the famous home of the World Darts Championship.
On taking part in the session Rachel Riley said: “What I love about National Numeracy and this kind of thing is it’s using maths in the real world. You use maths to solve real world problems, and this is helping their mathematical reasoning, and that will be beneficial for whether they’re kids or adults.”
Bullseye Maths co-ordinator Gary Horsley, who led the session, added, “It was wonderful to share the Bullseye Maths session with Rachel and she was very inspiring for us all. Rachel is an ideal role model for all young people and her ability with maths is just awe-inspiring! The children and staff were very lucky to meet Rachel and it was a lovely addition to our normal lesson delivery – we look forward to more Bullseye Maths fun in 2025 as the project continues to grow from strength to strength.”
PDC referee Kirk Bevins, who previously met Riley when he starred in the hit TV show Countdown, also joined in Wednesday’s session to encourage the pupils to engage with darts-based numeracy activities.
“Darts is a sport which is all about numbers and Bullseye Maths is a great way to encourage anyone to apply the basics of the sport to numeracy,” said Bevins, one of four referees at the World Darts Championship. “It was great to see the pupils involved in the session enjoying themselves and getting the chance to sample the unique Ally Pally experience!”
Bullseye Maths was launched in 2022 and received a Bronze Award at the 2023 Sports Business Awards.
In May 2024, a special Bullseye Maths session was held in conjunction with PDC partner Moneybarn and charity National Numeracy to celebrate National Numeracy Day, where Humphries was joined by Luke Littler at The O2.
For more information about Bullseye Maths, to play the interactive Mathlete game or to download worksheets, please visit www.pdc.tv/maths.
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Images: Taylor Lanning/PDC
