15 times table for 8 yr olds???

[sportscandy]

my dd has come home with the 15 and 20 times tables to learn for Monday. This is totally crazy, right? Her teacher is the worst I have ever known. Thinking of seeing the head on Monday.

Insane.
Don't do it.
Or does she know all the others already and this is extension work?

Saying that, when my dd was getting ready for the 11+ the main preparation she did was learning her tables up to 15 times and it was a HUGE help to her as a very shaky mathematician. But she was nealy 11, not 8.

that's the thing, she struggles a bit with maths in general, so I'm not going to do it. Will concentrate on 4's instead!

15 & 20 are a version of 5 and 10

They are relatively easy to learn because of it

DD did something similar I think at about 7/8 - it's to do with understanding number relationships I think (thinking back to dim history when I knew lots of maths)

Next question - are you absolutely sure she's got it right? She hasn't misunderstood the task, has she?

Speaking as the mother of a maths struggler, I do have to say that learning her tables made a huge difference to dd confidence and her performance. We really worked at them when she was in year 5, and she suddenly started getting 20 our of 20 in tests and came out of school flying.

But 15 times is just insane! As you say, concentrate on the easier ones for the time being

13 and 14x would be much worse. 15 and 20 are just extensions of 5, 10 and 2x. Seems a bit ambitious if she isn't 100% on the others though.

Teacher must be following general scheme of work laid down by maths coordinator, I'd have thought. Might not be her choice to do this.

deff right, it's written in the homework book. I've just looked at the curriculum online, they are only meant to know 2,3,4,5 and 10 tables !

She's having a laugh then! Take it up with her/the head.

The curriculum is a bare minimum, and there are lots of good reasons for doing other stuff as well. The fifteen times table, for example, is useful for telling the time.

It sounds as if you are maybe feeling a wee bit intimidated by these yourself ...

As others have said, 20x is easy peasy - version of 2 and bet she knows that. Children can often get quite a thrill to realise they do know the 20, 30, etc times tables.

15 version of 5. If your dd struggles and finds it hard, write a short note in h/w jotter.