Flying Start Games began when my elder daughter, Clare’s, Reception teacher gave her a pile of laminated words to learn at home.

Having been a primary school teacher in a former life, I couldn’t help but use the words to make a game of pairs, snap and lotto which we played with Clare. She enjoyed the game and learnt the words, and so we passed it on to some of her friends, who also liked it. Spurred on by the warm reception, it wasn’t long before Flying Start Games took off with an ever-expanding range of literacy and numeracy games.

At Flying Start Games we work closely with Hexham designer and teacher, Joni Daglish of Maia Cards to create bright and colourful designs for our games. Her laminated Hundred Squares and Number Lines are proving to be very popular with children to help them with maths homework tasks. Joni has also designed the pictures for our new phonics game, ‘Sounds Fun’ which have gone down very well with little customers.

Our games are printed and packaged by Greenbox, part of The Hextol Foundation (www.hextol.org) , which aims to bring positive transformation to the lives of disabled or disadvantaged people by helping them develop their selfesteem, self-confidence and sense of purpose - through work and personal achievement.