Hello there all

I was wondering if anybody could help me out, I'd be very grateful, here's the thing: I am a foundation art & design student and I have come to my final major project (the big one, pretty important stuff). The specialist area i have chosen is illustration and the brief I have set myself is imagined to be comissioned by a company who produce educational material for classrooms with the intention of getting students interested and involved in learning subjects, with exciting or eye-catching activities/resources that will make some impression. This is particularly important with teenagers in secondary schools as there is plenty to be distracted by, and the general seriousness and stress that takes over from the play-like nature of primary schools can easily be heavy and dull.

My task is to design and make an attractive, illustrative but functional game (I am currently thinking it will involve a special deck of cards, but it's all still in the balance, nothing is fixed in concrete just yet), for maths, aimed particularly at students just completing Key stage 3 and beginning their GCSE's (around age 14, doesn't matter if you're not exactly 14, if you've got anything you want to contribute just go right ahead

I figured that an important part of doing the best job i can with the brief is to find out what would be all these things to people that age - engaging, fun, memorable, and not too difficult to get your head round or boring. It's been a long 6 years since I was 14, and even if I wrack my brains and try to remember it's still only one person's experience, so I'm not the best source of knowledge there - therefore handing it over to you!

Questions to consider:

* What interests you and captures your attention?
* What are your favourite things and what do you enjoy?
* What is important to you in life?
* When and why have you really enjoyed a lesson in school?
* What do you find boring?
* What holds you back or causes problems in lessons?
* What do you think about maths? Are any parts of it preferable to others?
* If you were to play a maths-based game in class, would you have any specific requests - i.e, how many players would you like (the whole class involved in one big game? groups of four or five? pairs?), would prizes motivate you, etc.

Thankyou! Jennie