All children in England will be expected to know up to their 12 times table when they leave primary school, the government has announced

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www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31079515

Am I the only one that doesn't see how this could be a good thing? All it would achieve is more schools being forced to academies and even then how would that ensure 100% attainment in the years to come?

Yes I think school should go back to having children recite tables as a regular exercise but to demand 100% seems unattainable? What if the school had children that were not capable of memorising data like that?

So children are showing they are good at memorising rather than showing their maths skills. I do think learning tables is important but not as a stand alone topic. What is the point in 'barking' times tables if children don't understand them or can't apply them? Pretty useless skill to be able to parrot a few numbers if you have no understanding of how to use these in context or why!

If you actually know your tables & have been taught appropriately you understand that 3x4=1x12=2x6 but I have met children who can recite their tables but not comprehend this. It is unrealistic to expect all children to be able to know their tables as some will never be able to do so, their minds don't work in that way.

Sound bites are a dis-service to all - those who are quoted, teachers & students alike.

Don't all kids know their tables by about 8 or 9??
All my four did.

So they should know their times tables.

Excepting of course children with additional learning needs, who I'm sure will not be expected to achieve this target.

Well she did say every child, vino. I suspect she'll be having a bit of a u-turn tomorrow when someone points out the stupidity of what she said.

Interesting how we're all talking about the tables and the forced academisation for pretty much all schools has slipped under the radar.

It all very well having high aspirations, but threatening schools with forced academisation is counter productive. Talented people are not going want work under the pressure of totally unrealistic targets.

Nicky forgets that the selective private school with classes of 20 is a different enviroment to the average state primary.

I feel that there is too much of a obcession with learning time tables. What is the point of drilling tables into children who do not understand place value?

MRZ i grew uo in a country without shilliings and without inches and yet the good educators thought learning times tables at least to 12 , if not beyond, was good mental discipline and laid a strong foundation not only for further maths but, as another poster above said, for basic work-life skills.

Aside from visceral politics, .i can't understand why anyone would be anything other than supportive of a policy that aims to help ensure children across the country are encouraged to learn basi literacy and maths skills.

Because hasn't got anything to do with ensuring that children are learning basic literacy and numeracy skills. It's about the fact that there are less than 100 days until a general election and education is a big political football.

Any guesses on what's in Shiny Dave's education speech tomorrow?

FFs in the 70s I had to chant the times tables up to 12 every morning, and then do arithmetic squares using them - for an hour EVERY morning. For some reason I was truly rubbish at learning my tables and this shame went on for 3 years.

I thought I was rubbish at maths and gave up.

Eventually found a teacher in what us now yr9 who made me realise I was just rubbish at mental arithmetic. I went on to get A and B grades at A level in Maths and F Maths and came top in my maths in my first year at Uni

Some children just can't. Can you imagine the pressure they will be put under?

Being able to learn tables has nothing to do with mathematical ability.

Well I know that now but didn't then!

And I doubt all those children being put under immense pressure to learn them - because otherwise their teachers and schools will answer for it - will understand that either.

My DH used to walk both our children to infants school, making them recite their tables on the way . It was a game. The crossing lady was highly amused by it . She's still there (they are 28 and 25! ) and when I stop to chat she refers to it . They knew them all by the time they went to Juniors . They are both very good at mental arithmetic. It's good training for the memory apart from being useful in itself (obviously not every child will be able to do it, but that is true of everything they 'test' these days)

What is 'place value' reallytired. ?And why do you need to understand it ? I've never heard of it

DS (now yr5) knew all his times tables by end of yr2 (probably earlier).

DD (now yr2 finds times tables hard but apparently is good at maths).

I work with SEN kids in KS2 who will not manage to learn their times tables by 11.

I personally think it unrealistic to say all kids must learn them by yr6, for some it is un achievable sadly, and quite frankly puts too much pressure on them.

Yeah well reciting didn't work for me. I also can't remember phone numbers, and still have to recite the whole of the alphabet when filing. I'm 41. Yet I can recite numerous books and poems and songs.

Memory is a funny thing.

What will turning schools who don't manage this into academies achieve?

Academies aren't all Outstanding. Some are good and some are crap. Who would that benefit?!

ds has asd is in year two and can recite his twelve times table. just the same as he was able to tell you his number bonds to ten. ask him to add four bits of lego to five bits and he would not have been able to put them together in a heap and count them.

being able to recite them does not necessarily mean that they know how they work.

Anybody who thinks all children can learn them just because they/their child did are clueless about what goes on in schools and what some children are up against.

And Simpson, you work with children with SEN not SEN kids

Place value = knowing that the 2 in 324 means 20 (rather than 2)

Place value is what you might have learnt as Hundred, tens and units at school. Its the idea that in our base 10 system we can represent a number of objects with a written numeral from 0-9. Once we get to ten we run out of numerals so we write it as 10, which represents one 'set' of ten and no ones or units left over. 23 for e.g. is 2 sets of 10 and 3 ones. Ten tens make 100, ten hundreds make 1000 and so on. Understanding it means that you can use the number facts you do know to do other mental arithmetic quickly. so if you know 3x7=21, then you can also know

30x7 = 210
3million X 7 is 21million
0.3x7 =2.1

Abriata:i can't understand why anyone would be anything other than supportive of a policy that aims to help ensure children across the country are encouraged to learn basic literacy and maths skills^.

Because they realise that some children are incapable of achieving this, even if they were forced to do nothing but maths and English, all day, every day.

Abriata I teach tables up to 12 times (many of my Y2 pupils knew all their tables and the related division facts before they left me) the point is that we adopted a decimal system many years ago.

I would argue about it being good mental discipline ...

It is important here in my opinion to differentiate between political rhetoric and actual policy.
Of course every child, who can, should know their times tables by the time they leave primary school. If they do not then there is zero chance that they will succeed at secondary school. Same applies to being able to write a story, another of these so-called new policies.
However the "powers that be" if they have any sense need to understand that there will always be some pupils who cannot for all sorts of reasons achieve this outcome. The problem is that politicians seem unable to connect with reality at times. Hence all primary pupils will exceed the average results obtained at KS2 has previously been policy. Anybody with any sense will know that average means that some pupils are below that level and some are above that, not all above that.
The same applies to threats of being made to become an academy. Current policy is that if a school is "requires improvement" and cannot in two inspections get to good then they will be put in a category and that means becoming an Academy. That to me is sensible and if the SLT and governing body of a school cannot get to good in 3 inspections then they deserve to be removed. Is what Ms Morgan said different from that, well the way it came out Yes, but is the reality any different, that is yet to be determined but my suspicion is that it will not be that much different from current policy. They simply cannot afford to write off 4000 schools and senior leadership teams who are in currently RI schools.

Yep. Of course. Making a school an academy is totally the answer.

That's why the school that was forced into being an academy that my children attended is a school I removed them from. It's now little more than a box ticking exrcise run by a meglomaniac careerist head who has managed to force a lot of children who don't look good on the stats to leave.

I saw the writing on the wall and moved my kids to a smaller, LEA run school where the actual child still matters. Both children are much happier.

I also teach year 5 and 6. I'd agree that tables are vital: especially for division facts and the hideous mental maths test, but the plain truth is that some kids, as many teachers have mentioned, just won't hit that target. In my lovely school, there are many children with SEN and needs, that have chosen to attend there rather than the very results driven Un-SEN friendly academy. As a result, they will now be penalised and academised? So unfair. I challenge the silly woman to come and get my global delay, lovely student to learn her tables. And explain to her why she must!