Unlike Esa Helttula's other apps, which allow kids to practice specific skills through a no-nonsense kind of interface, Esa's latest app, for the iPad, gives kids a playground of sorts to play around ...

Children will now have to know their 12 times tables by the age of nine, but it's not about rote learning, it's about revelling in the profusion of patterns, writes Rob Eastaway, maths writer and dad.