Finding peers and support for a highly mathematically gifted nine-year-old

[bluebellnoodle]

DS is 9 and is profoundly mathematically gifted - many years ahead of his peers. Gifted in other areas too but the gap for maths is the biggest, at least 7 years. He attends our local state school in London. Until now he has been largely bored with mainstream academics but happy as he has good friends. Now it seems he also needs a community of other children who are of a similar age and ability as he is starting to feel isolated and disillusioned by the maths teaching (or lack of). I am trying to find a suitable teacher for him, which is not easy, because it's hard to know what the curriculum should look like. In the meantime he would love to chat maths (and other topics of course) with children who are like him. Would love to hear from any parents with children who are similar who would like to have a playdate! Or any helpful advice on how to navigate the above, based on personal experiences? Thank you so much.

I’m curious to know how you know he has the ability of a 16 year old?

does he go to chess club?

Enter him for City of London Boys' school. If he is academically gifted enough, he could be eligible for a bursary equivalent to the full fees.

Have you looked at maths circles?

https://www.londonsmp.co.uk/courses/index

I would approach the King's Maths School in Lambeth. It's a specialist 6th form college but they run outreach programmes for younger children too. I think it's from age 13 but they are very much on board with gifted mathematicians so might have some suggestions.

Seconding the maths circles.

Has he done a past UKMT junior math challenge paper? If so, how did he do? If not, have him take one. If he found most of it easy, move him up to the Junior math Kangaroo, but most likely he will find the junior maths challenge to be challenging.

https://ukmt.org.uk/competition-papers/jsf/jet-engine:free-past-papers/tax/challenge-type:67/

Have his school sign him up for this: https://ukmt.org.uk/enrichment/mentoring

Also, if it's possible, see if he can sit in on a higher level maths class instead of his current grade level maths class. If not, you can always print out some past junior maths challenge (and eventually, junior kangaroos/junior math Olympiad) papers and have him learn from doing them and reading the solutions. NRICH is another source of challenging problems: https://nrich.maths.org/topics-mathematics-secondary-students
https://nrich.maths.org/thinking-mathematically-secondary-students

I'm not sure what your budget is, but Epsilon Camp and Math In the Mountains are two camps in the US specifically for kids like your son, but the price is quite high.

Axiom maths has some maths circles but they seem to be for years 7 and up.

These are two options for finding challenge problems by topic (UKMT papers are comprehensive), but with the Canadian and US curricula respectively. That being said, I don't think it should be too hard to match whatever he's learning about in school or wants to practice to the same topic on these websites:
https://portal.cemc.uwaterloo.ca/psg/topic
https://artofproblemsolving.com/alcumus
The former is a worksheet generator (C questions being harder than B questions which are harder than A questions) whole the latter is an adaptive platform. Both let you choose the topic(s) you wish to practice.

The website says you need an income below £35k and to be a recipient of universal credit

https://1729mathsschool.org.uk/maths-camp
https://1729mathsschool.org.uk/problem-of-the-week ("We aim to respond to every solution we receive from children in Year 8 and below. Who knows, it could be the start of a conversation that ends with them here at 1729?")

Probably because the teacher’s told her?

Thanks very much for taking the time to reply mumsnetters!

Re: maths circles, I did approach this organisation but they didn’t recommend it for him as my DS would be a young person in amongst kids who are quite a bit older. DS didn’t fancy it from that perspective as well.

He’s already been doing the UKMT papers - scored one mark off gold for the intermediate challenge last year. He enjoys it but needs more. Good recommendation for the ukmt mentoring, his teacher has made a request for that. I hope it comes through!

Thank you Muu9 I will investigate the US angle and worksheet generator.

Interestingly he doesn’t seem too interested in chess! At least at the moment.

Did you ask this question so you could help your own child in a similar position, or help me with mine? If so, I'd be happy to answer this.

My nephew is/was exceptionally gifted at maths. He’s left school now but when he was at school from Year 7 onwards he did math lessons with the sixth formers. Was in his normal year for other lessons. Would your ds’s school consider that? Think he finished the A level syllabus by about Year 8 and school seemed happy for him to bring his own maths stuff to lessons and crack on. Which I guess stopped him from getting bored.

He did all the maths trust comps and then maths Olympiad.

Eh? No, I just wondered how you know what his maths age is - how did he get assessed?

I should imagine the school have said. This was certainly the case for my nephew. They could give him an old gcse paper at age 10 and he’d do it and get an A star. Doesn’t take a genius to work out that means he’s at least at the level of a 16yo.

If neither OP not their kid, wants to be on the young side at a maths circle, I don't think they would be keen to take maths with the 6th formers, even if it would make sense academically.

OP, try the book "First Steps for Problem Solvers" from the UKMT. It's meant to help students prepare for the Junior Maths Olympiad, which is harder than the IMC and a different style (proof based rather than multiple choice) and which he may find more interesting. Also, a book may feel more complete/meaty than just the past papers he's done so far.

The NIRCH tasks also have a different feel from competition problems.

One of the nice things about the IMC past papers is that the UKMT has "solutions and investigations", where each solution also has an additional question for the student to practice what they learned from reading the solution. If he does IMC past papers, he should definitely do the investigations on all the solutions which aren't obvious/simple to him.

The best books on school maths for mathematically gifted kids are, in my opinion, the ones written by The Art of Problem Solving: https://artofproblemsolving.com/store (you can find placement and place-out tests on each books webpage). I like to use bookfinder.com to find physical used copies, as it scrapes many book selling sites (use the ISBN if you want to search for a specific book, and set the United Kingdom as the destination so shipping/availability is included).

Regarding the UKMT mentoring, he's beyond the Archimedes level, so make sure the teachers nominate him for whatever level is appropriate (you can use the samples on the website for this)

Okay, it turns out the UKMT mentoring scheme is only for years 8 and above, so unless a teacher at his school happens to be a UKMT mentor, he's likely to be limited to Archimedes as it can be done in school, outside the mentoring scheme. Hopefully, he will find it interesting enough: https://ukmt.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/3.-Archimedes-Sample.pdf

Has he ever expressed a flicker of interest in learning an instrument - I’d say especially piano? Watching ds who was a good mathematician learning principles of scales etc made me realise how strongly linked the two are.

I’d be amazed that a 10 year old would be able to complete a GCSE maths paper and get full marks if they had not actually been taught the content. Many of the questions involve knowing formulae - this isn’t innate understanding of maths, but something that has to be specifically taught.

Like with any thing where a primary child is ahead if the school curriculum in any one area, you explore outside of school options. Same as hundreds of thousands of children do for football, art, drama, music, swimming, you develop your special interest outside of school. You have been given many good ideas above to try. As well as that, I would be talking to him about the negative words he’s using - boring, isolated, disillusioned- to describe what’s an absolutely standard primary school dilemma in one subject or another. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard for example of a child who is better at football than their cohort, complaining about it at school. You just find an acedemy outside of school, and enjoy being the top of the pack at school. No expectations of expecting the pe teacher to stretch you.

He spent a lot of time teaching himself via the internet. His dad is very gifted mathematically so I imagine helped. When it came to A levels he had to teach himself FM because the school couldn’t timetable it or something. He still got top marks for that with no teaching.

The same was true for my DS at primary - yes, he self taught content. In Y9 he self taught AS Maths and was entered externally for the exams by his school. Like a pp nephew, he also self taught A level FM. When he started university (Oxbridge) I remember him being thrilled because he said it was the first time he could remember anyone teaching him anything exciting.

We just found out yesterday that the UKMT will only consider mentoring children at year 8+. I hope that helps others to know that they are strict on this point.

Thanks so much Muu9, I've not seen these books before and they could be a winner!

Actually he likes piano - not obsessed with it or anything, but you've reminded me to find a teacher as he expressed an interest in having lessons, thanks!

You're right, Soontobe60, there are some specific formulae at GCSE and I do think there could be a few gaps in his knowledge that need to be filled. However, when he takes GCSE maths papers he consistently scores at least a grade 8 in the higher paper. He spontaneously proves hard things too - outside of the secondary curriculum. So for all these reasons and more, it is very obvious he is working significantly ahead of his peers.

Agree, DS would now love to be actually taught something and not just teach himself!

At ds’s school in the GCSE years they were expected to teach themselves FM GCSE at first (in groups at least) and it was only if they could handle that that they were kept on the course.

The first three levels of the UKMT can be administered at school by teachers without needing the mentoring scheme, so being in year 8 should not be a requirement for the first three levels. It's only the mentoring scheme that requires a nomination and the student being in year 8 or above. In fact the first level is roughly at the year 7 level.