At present, England is significantly underachieving in terms of developing able mathematicians, and this situation is now critical. It is necessary to increase systematically the number of young mathematicians with a robust and deep grasp of the range of mathematical ways of thinking and working. Able mathematicians are defined in this paper as those students aged 5-16 who have the potential to successfully study mathematics at A level or equivalent. The following principles that are mentioned in this report should be adopted in order to meet this challenge: Potential heavy users of mathematics should experience a deep, rich, rigorous and challenging mathematics education, rather than being accelerated through the school curriculum; Accountability measures must be developed so as to fully align with these principles; Investment in a substantial fraction of 5-16 year olds with the potential to excel in mathematics, rather than focussing attention on the top 1% (or so), is needed to significantly increase national capacity in higher mathematics.
