Series · Teachers Media
Painting With Numbers
A series exploring the visual and creative side of mathematics — from geometric patterns to the mathematical structure of art, music and design. It sits in the growing space of maths teaching that takes seriously the fact that mathematics is a creative discipline, not just a computational one.
About this series
The English maths curriculum has, historically, emphasised procedural fluency over the creative, exploratory dimensions of the subject. That balance is shifting — the NCETM's "Teaching for Mastery" work, the increased profile of problem-solving in the new curriculum, and the resurgence of interest in the visual traditions of mathematics have all pushed teachers to consider maths as a discipline of pattern, structure, and beauty as well as computation.
For KS2 and KS3 pupils particularly, series that explore the visual side of maths — tessellations, symmetries, the golden ratio in art, mathematical structures in music — can be an antidote to the perception that maths is only about "getting the right answer to sums". Pupils who find themselves alienated by procedural work sometimes reconnect with the subject when they see it as a language for describing pattern.
The pedagogical caveat: the visual and creative approach to maths is a way in, not an escape from the more disciplined work. Pupils who never move from tessellations to systematic geometric proof end up short-changed. The best teaching uses visual and creative openings as bridges into serious mathematical thinking, not as replacements for it.
Discussion prompts
- When did you last teach maths in a way that made a pupil see the beauty of the subject? What did you do?
- How do the visual, creative and pattern-based aspects of maths connect to the procedural work in your curriculum? Are they treated as one thing or two?
- Which pupils in your class are alienated from maths as it's usually presented? What might reach them?
Try this in your school
- Design one maths lesson around a genuinely visual or creative task (tessellations, symmetry patterns, the maths of a piece of art). Use it as an on-ramp to a more formal follow-up.
- Show pupils a piece of Islamic geometric art or a Bridget Riley painting. Ask them to describe what they see mathematically.
- Try teaching Fibonacci or the golden ratio through examples in nature and art before introducing the formal definition.