Maths Circles

Our in-person Maths Circles are free drop-in sessions with exciting mathematical activities, games and puzzles. These sessions take place in the James Clerk Maxwell Building. Students and members of staff from the School of Mathematics are on hand to help out, with light refreshments provided.  

The dates of upcoming Maths Circles are listed on our upcoming events page as soon as they are known.

Click to visit our upcoming events page 

Please note that for safeguarding purposes, we ask that all participants are accompanied by a responsible adult.

How to get to the James Clerk Maxwell Building  

To get an idea of the kind of activities you'll be able to have a go at, take a look at some of the following, courtesy of NRICH.

• Help the little monkey look after his peaches in Peaches Today, Peaches tomorrow.
• Race against time in the Stop the Clock game.
• Solve the famous Tower of Hanoi puzzle.

It makes maths seem like something that you can do for fun.

Maths Circle participant 

A Virtual Maths Circle is a one-hour long live workshop for children aged 7-11 and 11-14, taking place on Zoom.

Prior to the online event, a selection of maths problems is sent out to participants. Participants are encouraged to try some of the problems in advance. During the virtual event participants may join different e-rooms, where together with Maths Circle they can find and explain solutions to the problems.

Participants are welcome to attend either or both workshops, according to preference and the age of children. For safeguarding reasons, we require that each minor is supervised by a parent/guardian/responsible adult at all times during the online event.

Booking is required to attend and you can register via Eventbrite. 

The dates of upcoming Virtual Maths Circles are listed on our upcoming events page as soon as they are known, along with the link to the Eventbrite page to sign-up.

Click to visit our upcoming events page 

The Edinburgh Maths Circle has been an immensely popular event over the past few years. In 2018, thanks to funding from the Glasgow Mathematical Journal Trust and Edinburgh City Council, we have begun a programme to spread the Maths Circle initiative widely across Scotland. 

We loan our resources out to schools and communities, and provide training and support to enable teachers and educators to host their own Maths Circle events.

Borrow our resources 

In the past years we have produced two boxes of resources, one for primary schools and one for early secondary schools. Each box contains a selection of about thirty problems, with accompanying hands-on resources. We are able to lend the resources to all Scottish schools free of charge. Each school can keep the resources for a week and use them as appropriate.

Please email mathscircle@maths.ed.ac.uk or visit the Maths Circle boxes page to request to borrow resources: 

Maths Circle boxes  

Attend our workshops for educators 

Would you like some guidance on how to use the resources? So far we have run more than fifteen workshops (both in person and online) aimed at sharing our resources with school teachers and giving them advice on how to use them in the classroom.

During these workshops, we give a brief introduction to our Maths Circles, then we explore some of the resources we use. We also discuss how such resources can be used in the classroom and can spark curiosity and help children develop their mathematical thinking. 

Teacher workshops page