Pupils to sit times tables tests from 2019

[mrz]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-39053483

The faster the better!

There are only 38 multiplication facts to learn

Chippednailvarnishing,

I actually complained about(said he won't be doing it.) homework to time written one!
My ds is a painfully slow writer, he get so annoyed he can't write fast enough.

We aim for 50 written in a minute ...instant recall

Mrz, my ds can answer 150 question under 3 minutes really easily on line.(typing)
But he is a very slow writer. He has an instant recall, just not fast writer.
Also doing 50 and 150 makes a bit of difference.

As I said there are only 38 multiplication facts so not necessary to do huge numbers a one minute test doesn't take up too much time from teaching.

I don't really get what you mean,tbh, mrz. (Sorry, I'm foreign.)
I just think this obsession with "time" in school seems very odd.
I have expressed my feeling to ds' teacher that forcing my ds to fill in times table charts in 5 minutes(He actually done that, and given less time now), doesn't achieve anything.
You must know, he knew it since nursery!

Time in school is a valuable commodity. Children are only in school for s few hours each day and in that time we have to teach English, Maths, History, Geography, Science, Computing, PE, RE, Art, DT, MFL ...

Music

I love you, mrz. I worship you, I adore you, I respect you. I have to admit I am your no.1 fan. Forever (And I mean it.)
But, sorry, this time I don't understand what you mean at all....

Komodo maths explains the principle

komodomath.com/blog/the-38-challenge-make-times-tables-easy

Thanks, roastpotatoe. But that's not what I mean, what I don't get is, if the child can answer times table question instantly, why they have to compete to complete times table sheet as fast as they possibly can, which seems to be the extention work for more able at our school.

I'm a firm believe in learning tables by rote. It worked for generations so why shouldn't it be ok now? Every child, no matter what their IQ, knew their tables by the age of 10 and never forgot them.
My DGC learn them in the car on the school run. Extremely boring for me but they just get on with it!

The only thing I never struggled with was learning my times tables and I knew them all by second year junior, as did all my peers.We had to chant them every day at register time, the teacher chose a different one each day, it took a minute or two.
I had severe learning disabilities ito development and dyslexia and left school without anything in Maths and really struggled.
The amount of children who don't know them starting secondary really shocked me, as it did when mine were doing 2 a year through primary.

My dc learned theirs through music strangely enough.
They learned by rote but banging a drum to keep a rhythm.
When they were little they tried marching round the room whilst they recited them.
Not to everyone's liking but you can make a game of it.
The cassesttes and cds were good too, do they still exist. The songs were good as they helped you remember the table by the melody/ introduction.

I think that there is too much focus on speedy recall.

I never learned the instant recall thing for my times tables. Didn't stop me getting an A at O-level, studying Economics an Statistics at Uni and to then programming computers doing complex financial calculations for my career.
I suspect that nowadays I'd have got the message loud and clear by the end of KS2 that all this would be beyond my capability because I work out 6x7 by calculating 5x7=35+7=42...and that is too slow.

DH of ginger again. I know that universities do not always promote popular views, but PerspicaciaTick's experience is on track with the evidence that we have. www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-math-education-in-the-u-s-doesn-t-add-up/
"The irony of the emphasis on speed is that some of our world's leading mathematicians are not fast at math. Laurent Schwartz—who won math's highest award, the Fields medal, in 1950—wrote in his autobiography that he was a slow thinker in math, who believed he was “stupid” until he realized that “what is important is to deeply understand things and their relations to each other. This is where intelligence lies. The fact of being quick or slow isn't really relevant.”

DH of ginger, I think that there is a balance.

I agree absolutely that when it comes to genuine Maths problems, speed is not an indicator of ability in any way. However, 'automaticity' of certain trivial elements within the calculation of the solution to the problem means that time and attention can be given to the real problem, if that makes sense?

If we look at an analogy with English, the best writers are not those who fill the page quickest. However, having to sound out each word because no spellings are automatic poses a barrier to being the best writer that someone can be.

I think there is a level of 'automaticity', of recall rather than calculation, that is genuinely useful for key number facts such as times tables - by analogy, a number of words, like 'and', 'but', 'with', that it is genuinely useful to be able to write without thinking about them. However, there is then little or no advantage of being 'even quicker'.

For example, I can spell 'and' without thinking, but have to pay attention to which of practise / practice I need in a specific context. The poster above knows 5x7 automatically, but has to do the extra step of adding 7 for 6x7. That is an 'useful level' of automaticity, and is very significantly better than counting up in 7s from 0 every time, because if someone has to work out every fact on every occasion, the amount of time or effort that can be addressed to 'the real problem' is reduced.

The idea that we should aim to get primary children to have fast recall of their times tables because some leading mathematicians are crap at their times tables is bizarre.

Is being fast at times tables going to help with the curriculum? Yes
Should we seek to have a numerate population who have some skill at mental arithmetic? Yes
Is everyone who is slow at maths going to be a world leading mathematician?
Is someone who doesn't know their times tables quickly more likely to be a future world leading mathematician or someone who doesn't pursue maths past GCSE? Obvious.

Therefore should we seek to ensure that all have fast recall of times tables even if that means that some future world leading mathematicians don't get top scores in the times tables tests? I think so.

Noble, but how fast "fast recall" should be?
Do you think it's a great way to extend to repeatedly make a child who is already secure with fast recall of tables beat his own fastest time?

DH of Ginger There has been a lot of criticism of how PISA chooses to present (or suppress) its data. The following is an excellent blog on the subject:

gregashman.wordpress.com/2016/10/20/why-the-scientific-american-article-on-maths-education-doesnt-add-up/

What it says is actually quite shocking. We need to be very careful when assessing "the evidence we have" to make sure we look at all the evidence.

Irvine, I think that's my question too. 'Fast enough to demonstrate that it is almost certainly recall not calculation' seems a reasonable expectation. 'Ever faster' , in isolation, doesn't seem to me to have much point.

As a teacher, we extend pupils who have full and fast recall with application to e.g. multiples of 0.1, 0.01, 10, 100, 1000 (700 x 8000, or 0.2 x 50), to fractions (one third of 18, not 18 divided by 3; also simplification of fractions), and to powers and roots.

I don't know how fast, irvine have you seen some of the kids on times tables rockstars? They're amazing. Of course they don't need to be that fast but I guess neither did Roger Bannister.

Clearly if a kid is doing the same thing over and over and is bored then the questions should be mixed up and made harder, but all with the aim of improving numerical fluency rather than some other work.

cantkeepaway, that's what my ds has resorted in the end, he added decimals and 0's after having same homework week after week after week...still going on. And I think it's going to carry on until teachers are happy enough that all the yr4s are secure.