Yr2 maths curriculum

[Jonas25]

My Yr2 DC has been learning 2, 5 and 10 times table. I thought he was making good progress having mostly secured them before half term but he came home a bit upset saying he'd been given questions that included 3 times table and he didn't know the answers. Having checked the curriculum map it seems that 3 times table is covered in Yr3. I'm confused why the school are pushing ahead at this stage? The curriculum is already challenging compared to even 5 - 10 years ago. Is this now the norm in Yr2?

Were these questions within the x tables he knew? ( e.g. 10x3, 2x3 5x3) if so perhaps he is not yet aware that the numbers can be either way round.

Either that or perhaps the teacher was looking to see if any of the pupils knew some the 3x table or perhaps were able to work out the answer by repeated addition.

They having definitely started working on 3x as a standalone as he knows, for example, 3 x 3 = 9 and can count in 3s (but not all the way up).

This is pretty normal. The teacher might be trying to figure out who already knows what. Some exposure to other timetables won't harm him.
Don't think too much into it - your son will experience some disappointment and not knowing something many times in his school life. Just practise some more timetables with him.

Don't get me wrong I'm not worried about his pride I'm more just shocked at the pace.

I’m not sure if it is anymore but 3x table used to be a requirement for greater depth at the end of year 2 as it’s the first one they will cover in year 3

My guess is that they are trying to teach 30 kids, some of whom know their 2,5 and 10 times tables backwards in their sleep and others who can manage like most of their 2s and a few sums in their 5s and 10s (maybe even some that only know a few sums in each).

Realistically they can't teach all 30 individually, so now they either teach your child who knows most of the 2s,5s and 10s with those who know a few sums in each which will probably bore him to tears, or they teach him the next block. If he seems to have mostly picked up the 2s, 5s and 10 ok, the latter seems more sensible. They maybe just included some 3s to stretch the stronger ones and wanted to see if your son could work them out.

@stichguru thanks I think you are right. I just asked him what is 4x3 and he counted 3,6,9,12 to get to the answer. Also said that not everyone in the class is learning x3s.

Yes x3 forward and backwards is on the year 2 curriculum.

I'm out of touch with the Year 2 curriculum, as it's been about 8 years since I taught it, but I remember having to teach arrays in Year 2. Whilst I think they should only be learning 2, 5 and 10 by rote in Year 2, the theory is they can work out the answer to any multiplication if they draw an array. Maybe the teacher is testing their confidence and competence with arrays, by asking them to use this method to work out multiplication they don't already know by rote? As it's pretty pointless drawing an array to represent 4x2 if they already know it's 8.

It's good for children to be challenged. They need to know them all by Year 4, so it makes sense to move his learning on if he's already competent at 2s, 5s and 10s at this early stage in Year 2.

It's because thirds are usually in a question in the year two sats so we teach 3x tables to cover that!