Maitland's newest after school activity Tutorball mixes maths and football

Tutorball takes small group football coaching and weaves in the NSW mathematics syllabus to help improve kids' maths skills, fitness and socialisation.

Founder Aaron Smith said when he noticed the anxiety a lot of kids feel around maths, as well as the need for more physical activity, he thought why not combine the two.

"At the moment we're working on running with the ball, and odd and even numbers," he said.

"There's a couple of games we do like riverbank shore where we've got odd and even numbers set up on either side of the grid, and they've got to dribble their ball to whatever number the dice we have rolls."

Mr Smith first heard about the benefits of moving while studying education at the University of Newcastle.

"They've got a lot of these things [thinking while moving] coming through at the moment at the university, and I was lucky to be a part of it," he said.

"One of them was Maths with the Mariners that they did not long ago, which was basically high school students down to the Industry Group Stadium at the Central Coast with the actual Mariners players, and they basically ran through different ideas and activities on that day at the stadium and worked at all different aspects of numeracy.

"That kind of stuff really spoke [to me]; football is something that I love and I've coached it and played it for a long time, all my kids play as well, my wife plays as well, and it just kind of clicked while I was at uni."

Mr Smith currently plays football with North United Football Club, and has previously played with Maitland Football Club and Weston Bears.

After launching at the beginning of term three in July, Tutorball has steadily grown and its players are starting to see improvements.

Sessions are held at North United Wolves Football Club, Lorn on Thursday afternoons. Currently, Mr Smith has kids from seven-years-old to 12, and has a waitlist for more age groups.

Visit tutorball.com.au or message the page on Facebook to enquire.

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