Families looking for how to prepare for the maths olympiads nearly all land on the same answer: do past papers. That is necessary, but a pupil can work through twenty papers without improving. Olympiads do not test chapters of the syllabus; they test a way of searching for a solution and writing it up, and that is what has to be trained.
I have been preparing pupils for these competitions for years, and I built Fields, our training tool, for them. What follows is the method I put into it, and it works without the tool too.
Which olympiads, at what age
| Competition | For whom | Format | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Olympiades de quatrième (René-Merckhoffer competition) | Pupils in quatrième (age 13 to 14), in participating education authorities | Four problems in two hours, papers written jointly by some twenty education authorities; individual or in teams depending on the authority | End of March |
| Olympiades nationales de mathématiques | Pupils in première (age 16 to 17), entered by their lycée | Four hours, four open problems: two national, two set by the local education authority | March |
| Coupe Animath | From quatrième to terminale (age 13 to 18) | A first online round of puzzles; a second written round, three hours and seven problems for collège, four hours and eight problems for lycée | Autumn and spring |
| French olympiad preparation (POFM) | About 200 collège and lycée pupils a year | A year of training, remote and in camps, towards the international olympiads | Selection at the autumn Coupe Animath |
For a collège pupil (lower secondary, ages 11 to 15), the natural way in is the Olympiade de quatrième, then the Coupe Animath. For a lycée pupil (upper secondary, ages 15 to 18), the Olympiade de première. The autumn Coupe counts double for the strongest, since it opens the door to the national olympiad preparation.
What these competitions really assess
The official texts are clear. The problems in the Olympiades de première are “open”: the useful notions and approaches are not always stated in the question. Those in quatrième draw on standard collège material, but are presented so as to leave the initiative to the pupil, and solving them requires the ability to build and write out an argument.
A pupil who knows the syllabus perfectly can therefore freeze in front of an olympiad paper. They have not learnt to search: try small cases, draw a figure, guess a pattern, then prove it. It is a separate skill, and it can be trained.
The method, in five points
Pace matters as much as content. Starting in September for a March competition leaves time to climb in stages, from accessible puzzles to second-round proofs. A pupil who goes straight for the hardest papers gets discouraged, and that is the surest way to make them hate what could have become their strength.
Fields, our free tool
I built Fields for my pupils, then opened it to everyone. It holds nearly 200 problems from official past papers, from the Olympiades de quatrième and de première and the Coupe Animath, sorted into four levels of difficulty. For each method, a guide; for each problem, step-by-step hints and the story of the search: the first reflex, the moment it gets stuck, the breakthrough. Full timed papers serve as mock exams. It is free, with no sign-up, and the tool itself is in French: open Fields.
Beyond the competition
A pupil who trains seriously for the olympiads builds exactly the maths that prépas (France's two-year preparatory classes), EPFL and British universities expect: searching alone, holding on through a long problem, writing up cleanly. The prize, if it comes, adds to the application; the training shows in every maths mark.
That is the work I do with my pupils in one-to-one tutoring: choosing the right problems at the right time, reading their write-ups, and fitting the olympiads into a wider path, all the way to the admissions file.