Times table question

[Cortina]

Is it routine to teach only to 10 times a number?

DS only learnt up to 10 times in infants. Now he's in Y3 (at different school) and doing more formal learning of tables, he is expected to know up to 12 times.

This is Y3 I am talking about just to clarify. Seems strange to me, if you can learn to 10 why not to 12?

But then you could say, 'why 12, why not 14, why 14, why not 16? etc' Obviously, because you will learn to do these calculations by long multiplication, so why waste the time. Learning multiplication tables to 12 was very useful in the days of pounds, shillings and pence. Those days were over 40 years ago.

Yup DSD reported this "we only go up to 10" and then later on go to 12 must be how they are doing it now. All the flash cards/workbooks etc we have here all go up to 12 so she just did it that way herself anyway.

There must be a good reason behind it but I would have thought it easier just to learn them all at once

Looking at word problems knowledge to 12 (instant recall) would definitely help. Just wondering why the change?

Maybe it is the whole decimal/imperial thing and its easier for them to think in tens to start with and then later on add on the other two?

Its what cecily said - there was a real need to learn up to x12 pre decimalization/metrication. Nowadays, how far you learn beyond 10 is pretty arbitrary - I think extending to 12 is to some extent a historical hangover.

If you know 8x10 and 8x2 you can just add them together. That is a useful strategy to learn, it allows you to know how to go about 8x14 for example. It is a skill that will take you a long way with multiplication problems.

Nothing wrong with learning the times tables up to 12 of course, but I bet it was more useful in the days of pounds shillings and pence!

Might as well learn 11's as they are so easy.

We only learnt up to 10 x when I was at primary school and that was an awful long time ago (though post decimalisation - just )

You do realise that 12x is still useful for time-based problems?

I teach up to 12 x 12 in Y2/3 !

For primary, I don't have a view. But for secondary, 12 times is a must. (For example, without 12s even very simple quadratics are really hard to factorise, say x squared +15x + 36.) I teach in a v g secondary and we insist on 12s, plus good knowledge of 13, 14, 15, 16 up to about six times the number. And they memorise square numbers up to 25 squared.

Makes so much higher maths sooooo much easier. And it's stuff that is not do-able with a calculator.