He used the short intensive Khan Academy videos to pass his grade 9 by taking online tests administered by a board of education tutor who witnessed him writing them at home. He connected with these amazing lessons and used it to slowly rebuild his brain. He discovered TED talks that led to the Khan Academy story. As his mother, it was awful to witness that all my fun-loving son could do was lie on the couch and watch YouTube videos in short windows.

He was so distraught that he would likely not pass his first year of high school that he fell into a depression. My son experienced 3 concussions due to sport in one year and had to remove himself from grade 9 high school in Canada. LOVING the programme, learning stuff myself too:) For the first time in her life, she has just finished a maths session and said 'I enjoyed that' - music to my ears, and such a relief. Oh My Goodness! From the very first video - we had to go back to basic addition - I could see this was going to be different! She loved the way that Sal explained EVERY little detail, but not in a patronising way.

Roll forward 6 years - a few weeks ago I was reading an article in the paper about 'maths anxiety' - which was interesting, but one of the commentators of the article included a link to Khan Academy. She is intelligent and great in other areas, so I was sure things would click one day. Tutors came and went, to no avail, she would just cry silent tears, and things got worse, if possible! So I decided to just leave it for a while. I tried firstly to help her myself, but she was convinced she couldn't do it, and would not even try. I took my daughter out of school age 8 when I realised she could not add 2 + 2, and indeed was becoming terrified of maths.

Khan academy for 3 year olds