Mathique
Leila
the handler and navigator
Ten, clever, encouraging, and the one with the plan. She reads the mission map, briefs your child, and keeps her brother away from the alarms.
Year 5 · Ages 9–10
S.U.M.S.
The after-school maths club that isn’t. Decimals, percentages and fractions become spy missions, drawn in ink-and-shadow manga.
The story
Leila and Noah get dragged to the dreariest after-school maths club imaginable, and discover the chalkboard slides aside. Behind it is S.U.M.S., the Secret Undercover Mission Service, an elite spy agency that hides in plain sight because who would ever suspect a maths club? Your child is recruited on the spot as the Codebreaker and sent after a legendary master thief called the Magpie, whose heists get more outrageous every act.
How it looks
Ink-and-shadow manga in black and white, screentone and speed lines, with four boss gates breaking into full colour. Every mission is a genuine piece of spy work, never a worksheet in a disguise.
Meet the cast
Leila and Noah carry the story. Your child is the one who can actually do the maths, so the cast set up every clue and react to every answer, and the solving is left to them.
Noah
the reckless field agent
Seven, fearless and warm, and he befriends every guard dog, laser shark and villain’s cat he meets. His animal magic turns out to be a genuine spy skill.
Agent Whiskers
the handler cat
A tuxedo cat in a tiny earpiece who relays vital intel and only ever says "mew". The team acts on every mew.
Professor Pi
the gadget master
Flustered, brilliant, and the source of a new gadget per mission: the exploding pen, the umbrella that opens at the worst possible moment, jetpack boots with a mind of their own.
The Head
the spymaster
Poses as the school’s strict maths teacher, and is secretly the head of the whole agency. Brisk, unflappable, and gives every briefing in chalk.
The Magpie
the master thief
A theatrical thief with a magpie motif who steals the shiny and the supposedly uncrackable, and stays one step ahead all season. Their secret is the biggest the agency has ever kept.
What your child practises in Year 5
S.U.M.S. follows the national curriculum for England, in the order a Year 5 class meets it. Every strand below is covered by the story, and Parent HQ reports progress back in exactly these words:
- Number & place value
- Addition & subtraction
- Multiplication & division
- Fractions, decimals & percentages
- Measurement
- Shape & angles
- Position & direction
- Statistics
142 story missions in all, plus four boss gates: mixed-review checkpoints that have to be passed before the story moves on, so a skill is proved rather than assumed.
Start with the assessment, not the story
The free start-of-year assessment comes first: twenty questions, two per topic, dressed as your child’s first mission in this world. It shows you which Year 5 strands are solid and which are not, before they spend a single evening on the wrong thing.
The other three worlds
- Year 3: The Great Pie Festival · Ages 7–8
- Year 4: The Soggy Biscuit Detective Agency · Ages 8–9
- Year 6: The Crystal Core · Ages 10–11