Castelldefels & Barcelona · Small groups · Taught in English
Russian
Math Circle
Taught in English
byWilliams Maths
Joseph Williams leads the circle · Stanford Engineering · Harvard MBA
Passionate about inspiring children to go further than they normally would.
You can see more in your child than school asks for. So do we.
A maths circle for children whose parents can see what they could become. Not extra homework — harder problems, and a room where working at them is normal.
- Do you feel your child is actually being pushed in maths at school?
- What does your child say when you ask what they did in maths today?
- Is your child surrounded by children who make working hard at maths normal?
If those questions landed, this is for your child.
Already flying — and bored.
Finishes the worksheet in five minutes, then waits. Needs a harder problem, not more of the same one.
Not yet there — but you can see it.
Capable, uninspired, or yet to reach their true potential. Needs a reason to care and someone who expects more.
Where a child starts is a question of placement, not admission.
Ability is built — by hours on problems that don't crack straight away, by a coach who refuses to hand over the answer, and by a room where every other child is doing the same.
So a class isn't a lesson and then exercises. Children meet a problem nobody has shown them how to do, fight it in a small group, then defend the reasoning out loud. The answer alone earns nothing. One problem can take twenty minutes. Three can be the whole session.
A child's opponent is the problem, never another child. The benchmark is their own work three months ago.
The class is not where it happens.
You don't watch a child learn to ride a bicycle in the lesson. The learning happens in the week after, alone, on the homework. So every week's problems come with a video from Joseph working through the ideas behind them, and he answers questions through the week. No child is stuck alone.
Russian because of the tradition — the circles that began in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and produced a century of mathematicians — not the language. Every class is in English.
Age
- 9MOEMSMathematical Olympiads for Elementary & Middle Schools · where we start
- 11UKMT Junior & Intermediate ChallengeUK
- 13AMC 8 → AMC 10USA
- 15BMO · AIMEsenior rungs
These are the competitions British and American universities recognise. Which one a child sits depends on what they are ready for. A child who starts at nine can arrive at fifteen with a record already built, instead of starting one.
most are 9–14
the same faces
Saturdays to be confirmed
& Barcelona
to place your child
For the child who is ready for more than a circle can give.
One child, one coach, and a fixed path through three courses: from the first book of Olympiad problems to the Russian problem sets and the British challenges. What is being bought is mastery — a chapter is done when the child can do it alone, not when it has been read.
Joseph only teaches the chapters a child cannot get through by themselves. Everything else is worked at home, and the family follows progress in our app, chapter by chapter, problem by problem. Very few places open each year.
Placement
A short assessment with Joseph, in person or online. It answers one question: where does this child actually start?
A path, not a timetable
The next class is the next chapter the child cannot do alone — never simply the next page in the book.
Work between classes
The child logs their own answers in the app and marks what was hard. Parents see where to help next; the answers stay with the book and with Joseph.
Competitions, together
MOEMS, the UK challenges, AMC. Sat when the child is ready, never before.
Online and in person are the same class at the same standard.
Ask about a place
Joseph Williams
Competition mathematician and coach. Stanford engineering, Harvard MBA. Joseph teaches every class himself — no rotating assistants, no substitute teacher.
He founded and coaches a Math Olympics club at a British international school near Barcelona, and coaches his own children the same way. The method is the one he was taught: a hard problem, a small group, and the expectation that the reasoning be defended out loud.
He is a father of four and lives between Castelldefels and Barcelona.
“There aren't many inflection points in a human life. Meeting an inspiring teacher is one of them.”
A parent, 2026
One open workshop. Free.
Bring your child and watch them take a real problem apart. Dates in Castelldefels and Barcelona are to be confirmed — message Joseph and he will send you the dates first. What we ask in return is weekly attendance and the work in between.
+34 661 342 183WhatsApp · Joseph- Who it is for. Children 8 and up who can already do school maths and are not being stretched.
- What happens. One problem, forty minutes, the children do the talking.
- Then. A short assessment places your child in a circle of four to six.
- Cost of the workshop. None.