Welcome to the Parallel Universe
Be challenged, get curious, do maths. Stretch your brain every week.
The Parallel website is a great place to stretch your keen young mathematicians, because we offer three distinct approaches to stimulating and stretching their brains, with programmes that run week after week, year after year, from Year 6 (age 10/11) through to Year 11 (age 15/16). Our goal is to help increase the number and diversity of excellent mathematicians.
Crucially, we have designed all our projects to minimise the time and effort required of teachers, as you have enough to do already. All the activities take place while the students are at home, i.e., there is no disruption the school day. The only responsibility for teachers is to introduce students to our projects.
Below we will outline how to make the most of weekly puzzle sheets (Parallelograms) and our weekly webinars (Parallel Circles), which are both entirely free.
But, first, please read about our Parallel Academy, as the window for applications is now open and you can nominate your students in Year 7 (age 11/12).
The Parallel Academy will provide students with the opportunity to develop their reasoning and problem-solving skills beyond the curriculum. The project offers a long-term programme of small-group online tutorials, starting in Year 7 (ages 11/12) and continuing for five years. This is a life-changing opportunity that will prepare students for Further Maths A Level, applying to a to university and long-term success in a STEM-related career.
The project is entirely free for the first academic year, so there is no charge to schools or parents. In subsequent years we anticipate asking families to pay £5 per week, if they can afford it. Money will never be a barrier to participation.
For our 2024-25 programme, teachers from UK state schools are invited to nominate students who have just started Year 7 (aged 11 to 12 years). There is no limit to the number of nominations, but we suggest that large schools nominate up to ten of their strongest and most enthusiastic maths students.
Please note, every child who is nominated will either earn a place on our main tutoring programme (designed for the strongest students) or will be invited to join our webinar programme (aimed at strong students, who have not yet mastered key ideas)
Below are some details that might be of interest. As explained, your main role (and it is an incredibly important one) is to nominate students and help put them on the path to success. However if you would to know more about the admissions process, our safeguarding policy, etc., then please read on.
Thus every nominated student is guaranteed a place on one of our programmes.
Students are expected to attend weekly tutorials. They will also be set a homework task, which will take around 30 minutes to complete (and which will be automatically marked online). The total time commitment is therefore 90 minutes per week. Students may also be encouraged to explore other resources, although this will be optional.
The small-group tutorial format is designed to solicit maximum participation, so students will be required to demonstrate a willingness to share their ideas during tutorials.
The Parallel Academy will enable students to:
There is no formal curriculum, although the Academy will place emphasis on preparing students for UKMT maths challenges, as we believe they align with the aims of our project. Students will progress through modules of increasing difficulty. This is very much a programme that dives deeper into core curriculum concepts.
Tutorials will take place on Zoom, in groups of four to six, with each session lasting 50 minutes. All tutorials will place in the evenings and at weekends, so it will not disturb the normal school day.
The Parallel Academy has been developed by Simon Singh MBE (author of bestselling maths and science books, including Fermat’s Last Theorem and The Code Book), Junaid Mubeen (a former Oxford admissions tutor and Countdown series winner) and Tom Bowler (a maths teacher with experience writing and marking UKMT challenge papers). All three have extensive experience working with budding mathematicians. Simon and Junaid and have been involved with large-scale online tutoring initiatives involving thousands of students since 2020. The are supported by a strong team of tutors, such as Ayliean Macdonald, a former maths teacher and YouTuber.
Ensuring students’ safety and wellbeing is paramount to our work. Our safeguarding policy is informed by our experiences delivering online maths projects over the past few years. All of our tutors are required to have enhanced DBS checks.