I have to confess to having been a little jealous of Simon when I saw the Playdays game arrive. I spent many a happy hour, while I was at college, watching Playdays instead of working. Fun School's Teddy could never compete with the Why Bird, I thought.

But it can. Fun School 2 is actually three separate tapes, for three age groups. Tape one is for the under sixes - simple counting games and shape recognition. Tape two is for six to eight year-olds and deals with more complex arithmetic, co-ordination games and spelling. Tape three is for the over eights (which presumably includes me) with anagrams, logic puzzles and more complicated shape problems. So let's get down to specifics.

Shape Snap. Two shapes appear and the child has to decide whether they match. If they're wrong, Teddy is sad. If they're right, Teddy is happy. If they're right when the shapes match, Teddy s so happy that he waves his little arms. I don't know how much this would appeal to an under-6 but I was so chuffed that the others wondered what was wrong with me.

Find The Mole. Guess in which of the five different-sized hills the mole is hiding. If you're wrong, you're told whether his hill is bigger or smaller. When you find him he pops out. Teddy smiles and waves. Hurrah.

Teddy Count. How many teddies are there? You've probably got the hang of the thing with Teddy by now. I still thought it was great to get a smile and a wave from the little chap.

Write A Letter. At first I couldn't work this one out. I was supposed to be able to move Teddy around the screen to draw letters. I couldn't manage it - and then the program crashed. On the second go, I was able to draw some stuff and it was quite fun. No reward from Teddy, though.

Colour Train. Huge amounts of fun as you tell a tran to stop at the station. If you pick the station that's the same colour as the train, the passengers get on and off.

Pick A Letter. A more complex snap-type game where the child finds matching letters and mves them about the screen. It might be a little complex for some under-6s.

Spell A Word. Using the usual keyboard keys (as opposed to an icon-driven system), the child must spell the name of the object the computer draws. They're three-letter words like car and bag, with the four-letter door thrown in.

Teddy Bear Picnic. Guide good old Teddy from the top of the screen to the picnic at the bottom with the arrow keys.

Number Train. This one follows on from Colour Train in the Under 6 package. Stop the train at the right station and then work out how many people are on the train once all the getting-off and getting-on has been sorted out. Teddy has been replaced by Frog but the smile and the jolly wave are still there. It's wearing a little thin as a reward by now, though.

Shopping. Let's go shopping. Frog has stuff to buy and you have to take him to the right shop. It's a basic reading-type game that requires knowledge of the fact that you have to go to a pet shop to get pet food. We get ours from the supermarket.

Maths Maze. Quite good fun, this. You have to guide Frog about the place but occasionally, you'll be asked arithmetic questions by robots. If you're right, you can carry on.

Treasure Hunt. A rows and columns thing like Battleships. The computer tells you whether you're warm, etc. The map's quite nice and we all enjoyed playing this one.

Bounce. A co-ordination game where you bounce a ball so that it hits an apple. It's painfully easy at first, but, in the end, I found it quite tough, to be honest.

Packing. Oh no! One of those shape things where you have to fill a rectangle wth different shaped pieces. I hate these. Good fun for those that aren't spatially challenged, though.

Caterpillar. A word game. Caterpillar can only eat if you guess the hidden words correctly.

Number Jump. A times-tables game where Frog can only jump to pads whose numbers are multiples of the key number. Easy if you know your times tables, quite a useful way of reinforcing them if you don't.

Cor blimey, this is starting to get tough.

Build-A-Bridge. Another of those horrid shape games. Build a bridge with geometric shapes, and on the later levels, you may even need to rotate them. I'm better with words and numbers, frankly.

Passage Of Guardians. An anagram game where you progress through a maze by solving the guardians' anagrams. I was better at this.

Unicorn. Remember that old puzzle about the fox, the chicken, the grain and the boat and you can only put one of them in the boat at once but you mustn't ever leave two of them together if one will eat the other? Sure you do. This is the same, only with a bird, a worm and an apple. Good fun - but you only need to solve it once.

Logic Doors. Move about a maze, opening doors with colour-coded keys. This was quite a challenge, actually, and I still can't work it out, even with the answer in front of me.

Souvenirs. Foreign countries, souvenir shopping lists, exchange rates, limited funds. Flippin' 'eck, this is a bit too much like the real world.

Code Boxes. Ah, this is more like it. Open the box by typing the correct number - the number's written on the box in code. I could do this.

Mystery Machine. Another code game. I have to confess I got a bit bored with this. You have to make a machine work, but by solving more codes. Mmmmm.

Escape. You have to have completed all the other games so I couldn't do this one. (I'd got bored with Mystery Machine and didn't finish it) but it's a maze thing with keys. Then suddenly we found the little card with all the answers on that's included for parents and teachers, but it was too late - I'd already started writing.

The general verdict, then, is that the Under-6 and the 6-8 packages are very useful. They look okay (they sound horrible) and, if you play them with your child, you'll bother have a lot of fun. The Over-8 package is altogether a horse of a different kettle of fish, to be sure. By the time a child reaches that age, they're more likely to want to play a Dizzy game or go over to their mate's house to have a go at Street Fighter II.

The games are good, and very well thought out, but not much 'fun' and not really the sort of thing your child is likely to pick up on their own. It may have some use in schools, though, where teacher supervision is more readily accepted.

I spoke to a teacher recently who said that they're bravely soldiering on with their Amstrad CPCs but that most of her class have got Sega Mega Drives and SNESs at home and they seem a bit disappointed with the 8-bit educational stuff. And even though it's quite useful and they actually enjoy the games themselves, they make a big show of the fact that their console games are better than this, Miss.

Still, at the price, the two under-8 packages are well worth it. It's not as flashy as the Playdays pack, but there's tons in there and most of it is good fun.

Graphics 80%
Mostly fairly limited, but they do the job and Teddy and Frog are good fun for the young 'uns.

Sonics 73%
Bleeps, crunches and an irritating tune. Not too hot.

Grab Factor 85%
Impossible to judge how a child will react, but I quite liked it.

Staying Power 89%
As above, it's impossible to judge, but it should last some time.

Overall 89%
A cracking set of games that will definitely entertain younger children. Little there for older ones, though.