COMPETITIONS

The 2026 YMSA competition outcomes will be announced in:

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About the YMSA Competition

The Young Mathematical Story Authors (YMSA) competition is the world's first annual international competition set up to encourage young mathematics learners (aged 4-16 years old) from around the world to creatively embed their mathematics learning in a meaningful and engaging context through creating their own mathematical story picture books.

This competition is organised by the non-profit MathsThroughStories.org initiative, and it has been running every year since 2019. So far, we have received entries from more than 7,000 students across over 40 countries globally.

Key Dates

Entries open - Monday 5th January 2026

Closing date for entries - Friday 20th March 2026

Results publicly announced - Friday 29th May 2026

Judging Panel

Dr. Natthapoj Vincent Trakulphadetkrai (Reading, UK) is an Associate Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Reading (UK) where he has worked since 2013. In 2017, he founded the non-profit research-based MathsThroughStories.org initiative whose website offers a wide range of valuable and free on-line resources designed to help teachers and parents globally confidently enrich children’s mathematics learning through storytelling. The website has now been viewed over two million times by more than half a million teachers and parents from over 220 countries globally.

Helen Stacey (Oxford, UK) has worked in education for over 20 years, including many years as a Secondary English teacher. Now working in educational publishing at Oxford University Press, Helen is a Commissioning Editor who has helped to shape a wide range of impactful resources. Her project management has recently included the publication of Stories for Maths, a series of mathematical story picture books for children aged 4-7 years old, which encourages maths learning through the ‘safe space’ of a story. Helen has judged several other children’s story writing competitions and is thrilled to join the YMSA team.

With 63 mathematical stories under his name and a total volume of 18+ million copies of his MathStart series sold worldwide, Stuart J. Murphy (Massachusetts, USA) is the world's most prolific and best-selling mathematical story author. Stuart is also the author of I See I Learn, a series of 16 books that teach social, emotional, health and safety, and cognitive skills to young children. In addition, he is also a member of the authorship teams of a number of mathematics programs published by Savvas Learning (formerly Pearson Education), including enVisionMATH, a top-selling comprehensive elementary mathematics program.

Cindy Neuschwander (California, USA) has authored all 13 titles in the very well-established and much-loved Sir Cumference series. She is also the author of three other titles in a separate series following mathematical adventures of Matt and Bibi ('Mummy Math: An Adventure in Geometry', 'Pastry School in Paris: An Adventure in Capacity' and 'Patterns in Peru: An Adventure in Patterning'). Additionally, Cindy also contributed to other mathematical series, namely ‘Amanda Bean's Amazing Dream’ (Marilyn Burns Brainy Day Books series) as well as '88 Pounds of Tomatoes' and 'The Chocolate Champs' (Hello Math Readers series).

Judging Criteria

4-7 years old

Ability to come up with an engaging and original story (with a beginning, middle and end)
Ability to show how the chosen mathematical concept is used to solve a problem
Ability to use a combination of words, numbers and drawings to show the mathematical concept in the story
Ability to present your story clearly and the mathematics accurately (e.g., quality of drawings, neatness of presentation, mathematical correctness, etc.)

8-11 & 12-16 years old

Ability to come up with an engaging and original story (with a beginning, middle and end)
Ability to show how the chosen mathematical concept is used to solve a problem in a meaningful context (e.g., a problem that is aligned with one of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs])
Ability to use a combination of words, mathematical symbols/notations and images to show the mathematical concept in the story
Ability to explain the chosen mathematical concept in the story clearly without assuming readers' knowledge of the concept
Ability to present your story clearly and the mathematics accurately (e.g., quality of drawings, neatness of presentation, mathematical correctness, etc.)

Awards

The Awards for our three age categories (4–7, 8–11, 12–16 years old) are named The Kersti Worsley Award, The Stuart J. Murphy Award and The Cindy Neuschwander Award respectively.
The winner in each of our three entry categories will receive an award of £100, and their school will also receive £100. (In case of homeschooled children, if they won, they would get £100 and their nominated local public library would too get £100.)
The winners will also have their own profile, their schools and their winning entries featured on the MathsThroughStories.org website. (Since its launch in March 2017, the website has been visited around 2 million times by over half a million teachers and parents from over 220 countries around the world.)

Promotional Resources

To help promote this competition to students at your school, we have created a poster PDF for you to e-mail to your students and their parents and have the poster displayed around your school.

The 2026 YMSA poster PDF can be downloaded here.

The competition's social media hashtag is #YMSAMaths.

Supporting Resources

1. Guidance
To help support your students/children in creating their mathematical story picture books, you will find the following resources useful:

read our short article (published in the UK Association of Teachers of Mathematics' journal) which outline key qualities of well-designed mathematical story picture books.
learn from fellow teachers' experiences of engaging with the competition through reading their testimonials, and listening to this podcast (produced by The Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers).

2. Mind map, storyboard and book template

our mathematical storytelling mind map and storyboard for 4-7 years old and 8-16 years old, and
our suggested mathematical story picture book template for 4-7 years old and 8-16 years old.

Concerning the template, the story structure found in the template is only one of many possible story structures. Stories that do not follow this suggested story structure will still be considered. Please use this template to help your students/children with their story planning. (The final version of their story should then be neatly transferred onto clean / blank A4 sheets of paper.)

3. Example entries
Other ways that you can support your students/children is to encourage them to read as many as possible past successful YMSA entries which are accessible free of charge via the links below.

Winning and shortlisted entries from 2025 can be found here.
Winning and shortlisted entries from 2024 can be found here.
Winning and shortlisted entries from 2023 can be found here.
Winning and shortlisted entries from 2022 can be found here.
Winning and shortlisted entries from 2021 can be found here.
Winning and shortlisted entries from 2020 can be found here.
Winning and shortlisted entries from 2019 can be found here.

Guidelines

Our Guidelines have been developed based on the most frequently asked questions from teachers and parents over the years, and we hope you find them useful.

1. Story Content

1.1 Each story should focus on only one mathematical topic to allow the author to demonstrate their depth of understanding.
1.2 The chosen mathematical concept must reflect what students are currently learning. For ages 12–16, this should normally include topics, such as algebraic functions, exponential growth, powers and roots, or more advanced probability and statistics - rather than basic operations, simple fractions, or elementary 2D shape properties. (Please note: many entries each year in the 12-16 category focus on Pythagoras’ Theorem and bearings. Students in this age group are therefore strongly encouraged to choose alternative concepts to help their work stand out.)
1.3 Stories may be written in any fiction sub-genre (e.g., fantasy, detective, adventure, humour, science fiction, fairy tale, etc.).
1.4 The strongest entries are those that closely align with our judging criteria.

2. Format & Presentation

2.1 Page limits

Ages 4–7: maximum four A4 pages (excluding front and back covers)
Ages 8–11 and 12–16: maximum eight A4 pages (excluding front and back covers)

2.2 Text & illustrations

Story text and illustrations may be handwritten/hand-drawn, typed/digitally illustrated, or any combination.
If technology is used, all typing and digital illustration must be completed independently by the students, without adult assistance.
AI-assisted illustration is permitted; however, judging experience suggests this often weakens entries, particularly in the quality of mathematical visualisation and consistency of characters across pages.
Students’ own drawings are strongly encouraged to avoid copyright issues.

2.3 Layout requirements

Entries must be in portrait (vertical) format.
The front cover must include: 1) Story title, 2) Author’s name, and 3) School's name (indicated “Homeschooled”, where applicable).

2.4 Language requirements

Entries must be written in English.

3. Authorship & Eligibility

3.1 Entries must genuinely represent students’ own work.
3.2 Only individual entries are accepted (i.e., one student per story).
3.3 Each student may submit one entry only, with no limit on the number of entries per school.
3.4 Entries are welcome from students globally.
3.5 Entries should be submitted to the older age group if, at the submission deadline, the student is 7 years 6 months or older (i.e., submit to the 8–11 category) or 11 years 6 months or older (i.e., submit to the 12–16 category).

4. Submission Process

4.1 General submission requirements

There is no entry fee and no registration is required.
All entries must be submitted as a PDF file.
Teachers may indicate any cognitive or learning disabilities in the submission e-mail for judges’ consideration.
To ensure inclusiveness, schools are encouraged to submit all students’ entries, and not only the strongest ones from their school.

4.2 File naming format

Each PDF file must be saved as: School_Country_FirstNameLastName_Age_Gender
Example: LondonPrimarySchool_UK_DavidSmith_9_Male
For homeschooled students, use Homeschooling in place of the school name.
Gender options: Male / Female / Non-binary / Undisclosed. (Optional information used to help us understand participation patterns and promote inclusivity.)

4.3 How to submit

For safeguarding purposes, entries must be submitted by the student’s teacher/school. We cannot accept entries sent to us directly by students.
For fewer than 20 submissions: simply e-mail entries to: [email protected] by the stated deadline.
For more than 20 submissions: files may be uploaded to Google Drive or OneDrive, with the download link e-mailed to us instead.

Terms and Conditions

Our judges' decisions are final.
Due to the expected volume of submitted entries, we are unable to provide feedback for unsuccessful entries.
Unsuccessful entries, with further improvements, can be submitted again in the following year's competition.
By submitting your student's / child's entry, you guarantee that the work is of their own creation and no part of the work has been plagiarised from the work of others or includes the creative involvement of others.
By submitting your student’s/child’s entry, you grant MathsThroughStories.org permission to use the submitted work for research purposes, academic publications, and promotional activities related to future competitions and the organisation’s wider work.

Further Enquiries

For more information of this competition, please contact us here.

Outreach Partners

We are grateful to the following Outreach Partners for promoting our competition to Mathematics teachers and students in their respective regions around the world.

Europe