New SATs test on times tables

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TES link

First three paragraphs:

All children will be tested on their times tables as part of their KS2 Sats, under new plans unveiled by education secretary Nicky Morgan this morning.

The tests will examine multiplication skills in every 11-year-old as part of ministers' "war on innumeracy and illiteracy", the Department for Education said.

Pupils will expected to know all tables up to 12x12, with the skill measured using an "on-screen check" examination to be piloted by 3,000 students in 80 schools this summer before being rolled out across English primaries in 2017.

I am so cross about this.

1. Why remove the Mental Maths test (which did test times tables)
2. More timed tests are NOT what we should be doing at primary where many children already feel under pressure
3. Maths is an area where children often panic and their minds become blank - this is really not going to help
4. What happened to Nicky Morgan's promise that nothing new would be introduced?

I am so, so angry right now

Try the website www.xtramath.org
You can select addition, subtraction, multiplication and / or division, and choose the difficulty level. It's a daily quiz where each day there's a progress check (several questions to see which the child already knows) and then two 'race the teacher' quizzes where they pick a select few questions and repeat them randomly, to see how quickly and how regularly the child gets them right.

Each day there is a score and you can look at which questions the child got right in time, late, or got wrong, so you can see if they are always struggling on the same question etc.

I think the repetition and computer game style is great, and tracking by day works very well.

It's free (as long as you don't choose to download their app - just use the website itself). I definitely recommend it.

Teachers, not CDs, should be teaching times tables. They are best learned in the classroom, little and often, with only a small amount of revision with parents.

I'm not too fussed about testing them at home but I've heard a CD of songs mentioned before. I'm more than happy to have some times table songs in the car!

Great idea. My 13 year old still does not know his tables ( and refuses to learn them now) and it is so frustrating to see how long it takes him to do maths problems. Some steps would be so much quicker if he knew his tables rather than the way he works it out. Many years ago my teacher gave us a table to learn every few weeks then would randomly ask us to stand up and recite them. Fifty years later I still remember them all!

My DD is in year 3 and seems to have done very little times tables work. I started working on the 2 x table with her over Christmas and she now knows it pretty well.
She is a bit behind in maths and her school would probably say she isn't ready. However, in 1 week, doing just 10 minutes or so a day in quite a fun way has taught her a lot. I know the harder tables will be tricky for her but as a parent I think a test is a good idea and would hopefully give our school a bit more of a push on this. I think it should be year 5 though.

Children should not be made to feel failures in maths. A child with dyspraxia might struggle to type or write fast enough to answer 40 questions in 3 minutes even if they know the answers. Being good at maths is as much about confidence as anything.

Tables knowledge is useful and gives a massive advantage in primary. As children get older then understanding of maths becomes more important. Good mathematians (ie. A-level) see maths in a pictorial way. If they have forgotten what 7x8 is they can think I know 7x7 is 49 so 7x8=49+7=56.

I am not saying that times tables are not useful, but learning tables should not be the end goal of primary. It's not enough to be able to mindlessly regurgitate facts.

Children in Singapore do not mindlessly learn tables yet they are some of the best mathematicians in the world. Their early years is spent with malipulatives and doing lots of problem solving. I cringe that my year 2 daughter is expected to learn her tables with lots of repeatitive work sheets. She is very good at memorisation, but understanding is not yet there as she is only six. She cannot see the link between the two, four and the eight times table as she is not yet secure with doubling and halving large numbers. She needs a slower pace and time to consolidate. (She is exceeding expectations in maths so I doubt she is alone.)

times no argument from me there are teachers who really aren't good enough. However I believe the solution is to change that. Not allow substandard teaching to continue because they happen to have the right cohort to meet targets anyway, and penalise/ drive away good teachers because they have a difficult cohort.

I also think reallytired has a good point re able children being made to repeat work. And on the other side of the spectrum, the least able being made to focus on memorising them at the cost of other aspects of their education.

I bought a time table practise book from whsmith(sorry cant remember which one), they have 1 colourful page of all tables. I sticked this page on the wall in the kitchen. My daughter knew all time tables in and out by end of year 1 and we found it very easy(she only finished the 12 pages book and we have some "games" some weekends if we are in the kitchen tricking each other in the table-she asked me too and I sometimes pretended I got it wrong so she could correct me-we both tried not to look at the table. We have an aim of having a game at next meal so see who got it faster-she beated me after couple of times) Knowing it well helps so much with manything else in maths(decimals, fractions, measurements...basically anything with numbers)

We bought a poster from Toys r Us a few years ago, stuck this on Ds bedroom wall and each night he'd actually want me to ask him a few random table questions, this was of course a ploy to stretch out bedtime as long as possible but, well, all in the name of maths! This teamed with the work the teachers (and myself) have put in and he knows them and is confident, even with the 'trickier' numbers. In fact he was confident with them in Y3.

Hope the confidence continues and he doesn't become like I did, hating maths. In fact, I've learned my times tables through going over them with Ds, which shows how terrible I was at maths.

The poster was all of the tables up to x12.

Yes, we still have this table now sticking there even she didnt look at it or need it the last 2 years or so. Knowing time table then she learnt divisions very quickly too and helped her massively with decimals(multiplies, divisions,adds,subtraction). I have to admit that we love numbers as both myself and my husband studied maths so it might have helped. She naturally loves numbers since young age, we have to do very little with her maths even I am hoping she has more support from school as the seem focusing on less able children instead

Lurked, I think even least able children have to learn tables at the cost of other aspects of their education, it will help them in the long run, isn't it?
If you are not good at maths and don't know tables, you pretty much have no hope of getting further?
As a parent of able child, I'd rather all the children learned tables earlier as possible, so they don't have to keep going back to learning tables in upper primary or even in secondary.

Exactly, keeping the poster on the wall helps with division too, helps to 'see' how it works.

Rafa: When parents look at how well a school is doing they do not see individual teacher names in a league table. If a head blames a good Y6 teacher for bad results instead of a Y4 or 5 teacher who was the root cause, then they are an idiot and the school will go up in flames. Would tthe boss do that?

If targets were based on individual progress couldn't teachers game the system, mark kids down in KS1 to get great progress in KS2? Average expected performance gives a target that invests all staff pushing to get the best results possible.

ReallyTired: I guess we just agree to disagree. I would 100% send children to a school that properly taught times tables by Y3/4. Rather than a school that believed times tables wasn't maths and left it to the 'future' when a teacher decided they had a number sense of division and unlimited time to work out the answers. And probably didn't teach reading until the child had a letter sense and could understand what a verb, noun, adjective etc was.

Professional mathematicians do not have to think carefully about single digit multiplication they have instant recall. They think carefully about the hard stuff. Would you employ a maths teacher that took ages to work out 7x6?

In Y6 SATs, expected progress or not expected progress is not the same as Pass/Fail (compared to an 11+, GCSE or A-Level test for example)

My DD is top set maths in Year 10. She and her friends do not know their tables. Many of her friends are also studying further maths.

My DS1 is in top set maths in Year 7. He does not know his times tables either. He got 100% in the level 6 paper last year.

However, I do agree that less able mathematicians do benefit from knowing their times tables. It gives them confidence and allows them to work more quickly on the Y5 and Y6 curriculum topics such as fractions and percentages.

irvine learn them? Yes I agree. But for the very least able, I don't believe dedicating lots of time to perform well in a test, because the teacher feels under pressure to get them to pass no matter what, whilst still struggling with even more simple concepts is in their interests.

Lurkedforever1, if the teacher have to teach them because they feels under pressure to get them to pass no matter what, then I feel the education system here is completely wrong.

Cece, your children must be exceptional, I dont know anyone around me(I work in quant in bankings and studied maths) nor my husband's who also studied maths and works in banking who dont know time tables.( but I dont remember how did I learnt it)

I personally prefer this approach: having a set of minimum standard at what year and the standard is very to justify(a test) so I know what should be understood from the curr as I now feel that I am very lost of how to judge my daughter learning/milestone as the only thing I have at the end of the study year was a report saying very generally how she did for the year(state school here) and 2 very tight 10 mins meeting with head teacher if there wasnt an issue

Teachers don't make the rules.
Ofsted have got wise to schools marking down in KS1 poor results in KS1 can mean a school fails

I expect that cece's children can work out tables at lightening speed. If a child can work out a multiplication in a fraction of a second then they have no need to memorise. Not all children are that smart.

If there is to be a tables test I would like it year 4 with a resit in year 5 and 6 for those who fail. It would keep the job of teaching tables where it belongs - in primary.

I was super quick, found top set easy in a grammar school, Did A level maths etc and still struggled with some 7/8 times tables into adulthood BUT I could work them out very quickly. ie 7x6 is 36 plus 7 oh yes 42....