Keeping kids in from play at lunchtime.

All the posters moaning about parents not doing enough. How about schools!? Most parents work until late and simply don’t have the time. Some parents don’t have a clue about maths for example, I certainly don’t know my times tables other than the easy ones like 2, 5 and 10. The curriculum has changed a lot since we went to school too.

As a year 6 teacher, your child will struggle with the upper KS2 maths curriculum if he doesn’t know his times tables. The arithmetic SATs paper only gives 30 minutes to answer around 38 questions and relies heavily on times table recall. The best thing you can do is crack his tables now and then he won’t have to stay back for even more catch up sessions as SATs get nearer

Doesn’t your son get maths homework? Haven’t you noticed it’s sometimes multiplication?

I think parents (and maybe the teacher) would prefer the lunch club rather than before or after school club. Some kids wouldn’t be able to attend before/after school which means they would fall further behind.

My son got lots of intervention help when national tests were looming. I wish the help had started at an earlier age but school budgets..

You’ll be able to Google results in previous years but just because your son isn’t behind in his class as most need help, it doesn’t mean that this is the national landscape. How would you feel if he achieved below average nationally?

As an involved parent I’d also check out the other apps sent by the school on your own. Do you really need the school to tell you how many times a week etc?

Your comments about times tables and speed are very strange. You say that your son is interested in maths and times table confidence will mean being able to learn harder maths that uses multiplication and division as a small part of the calculation process (eg algebra or long division)

Teacher here - kids aren’t active enough. This is counter intuitive

that many kids not knowing them I’d have one lesson a week on them.

@0gfhty once your child started learning their times tables (and this would be before year 4) did you never practise them with your DC? Have they never had a times table test in class before now? Year 4 statutory test should be a culmination of a few years work on times tables, not just learning the tables but understanding the maths behind them and then using them in calculations. It’s not just learning them by rote

It’s one day a week and if helps then then whats the issue

we do ttrs daily. 5 mins for the questions as a minute a round

dd is in yr 4 so the same and as with many in the class she is good at 123456 9 10 11 and needs work on 78 and 12

I think its good the school is helping and maybe practice more with your child so they dont need this club

They call it 'club' to make it sound more appealing. In reality, these kids aren't where they need to be with times tables and need extra help.
Work on them at home OP. It doesn't come say to some (myself included - I would have been in that group!)

I'm certainly not an expert so maybe someone who is will also answer! But in my experience with DS during covid hime learning times was he had only so much in his tank, so to speak, when he came to sitting down and learning maths and because he was needing to spend time to work out basic things like 6*7 it was holding him back from actually really learning and getting a grasp on long multiplication and long division. When we stepped away from the curriculum for a bit and focused on times table we found picking up long multiplication and divisions much easier and quicker.

Children need a break and they need play and they need exercise

if the school is failing to teach them they shouldn’t make the kids suffer as a result of crap teaching or crap parenting

I'm curious enough to ask what you mean by this? Times tables are necessary for long multiplication. It's a method of multiplying large numbers by breaking them down into your times tables...

Is the whole thing about learning times tables just to benefit from knowing the answer 'off by heart' rather than just doing the calculation when it arises?

@0gfhty in your opening post you said it was for all children who don’t know their times tables. So many of us are assuming once children are up to speed on the tables they need to know they no longer have to attend, although you may find some still do as they have a competitive streak and love beating others in time tables tests

This would be my response as well.

@Givemeachaitealatte but you must understand the fundamentals behind them and I assume you are not saying you don’t know things like 2 x 2

I managed to pass my GCSE maths, obtain A levels, a degree, a master's degree and a great job all without knowing my times tables off by heart.

If you don’t want your child to get free extra tuition just tell the school. I find it bizarre because in my area maths tuition is expensive and difficult to find.

I never learned my times tables and I have an A in a level in maths (before Astar existed) and an engineering degree from a Russel group uni. But I never needed to learn them because I could do multiplication the long way pretty quickly and found the vast majority of maths easy. Most kids aren’t that lucky.

Honestly, the obsession with knowing your timetables in the curriculum is insane. I don't know my times tables off by heart, it just wouldn't stick and do you know what? It's not impacted my life in the slightest, I have a great job and a calculator in my pocket if I get stuck.

MN is bizarre sometimes, why are we all thinking children losing playtime where they experience joy and creativity to learning something that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things - it's just learning something off by heart, it's not actually telling you how intelligent they are.

It's not just speed. Times tables are a fundamental building block for all future Maths learning.

If you don't want your child to have to do catch up in his lunch break, you should have practiced with him at home.

Not by teachers it can't though, so if parents aren't doing it then what are the options.

@Oblahdeeoblahdoe it could be but there are parents like OP who don’t do them at home, so those kids are the ones missing their lunch break. There is an easy solution for OP so their DC doesn’t have to miss some of their break time