Last month the Department for Education published data on the most recent multiplication tables check (MTC) - and it made for positive reading.

Overall, the average level of attainment in the assessment, which determines whether Year 4 pupils can fluently recall their times tables up to 12x12, rose for the third year in a row, as did the percentage of children scoring full marks.

Given that the test was introduced as a statutory requirement in 2022 under the previous Conservative government, it is no surprise that former schools minister Nick Gibb tells Tes he is “absolutely delighted” with the latest data, and claims the assessment will have a huge benefit for these pupils.

“It is important children are able to recall their tables with ease and with automaticity, to enable them to carry out higher-level mathematical calculations,” he says.

“[It] means they’ll be far better equipped to handle a more challenging primary curriculum. But it’s also a good preparation for challenging mathematics at secondary school.”

This is a sentiment echoed by Labour’s school standards minister, Catherine McKinnell.

“Basic multiplication is an essential life skill and allows children to tackle more complex maths later on in life,” McKinnell says - noting, too, that the MTC data also, importantly, shows improvements for disadvantaged pupils.

So how have schools driven the improvements shown in MTC results over just three years? And does it really mean that their pupils will be better at maths in the future?

Multiplication tables check: targeted teaching

Emma Whitehead, a Year 4 teacher at Offord Primary School, part of the Cambridge-based CAM Academy Trust, tells Tes that over the past few years her pupils have had “more targeted teaching sessions about times tables facts” in order to help them prepare for the MTC.

“Sessions included multiplication games and puzzles, fact retrieval worksheets and timed challenges,” Whitehead explains. “We focused on one multiplication table each week in the sessions and at other opportunities during the year.”

It’s a similar story at Inspiration Trust in Norfolk, where primary assistant maths hub lead Charlotte Grealey says that to prepare pupils for the MTC, teachers now “dedicate more time outside maths lessons to developing that fluency” with times tables.

“Regular repeated practice helps to retain those facts and get them into a long-term memory,” she says.

Grealey also cites the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching for Mathematics (NCETM) programme Mastering Number as a resource that the trust’s schools have turned to for help.

Digital maths programmes

Another tool highlighted by several leaders is Times Tables Rock Stars, with Mark Chatley, CEO of Coppice Primary Partnership in Kent, telling Tes that his trust uses it to “ensure the children are working at the right level” and then focus on any areas that need addressing.

Meanwhile, at 34-school Truro and Penwith Academy Trust, CEO Jennifer Blunden says both her schools’ average scores and the percentages of their pupils gaining full marks have increased to above the national average - despite the South West being the lowest scoring region.

She connects these improvements to her schools using resources such as Mastering Number, “combined with initiatives including inter-school [times tables] competitions”.

Plenty of testing has also been the order of the day at Highlands Primary School in London, as executive headteacher Kulvarn Atwal explains: “We are ensuring they are practising and preparing for the tests at the end of the year.

“Particularly when leading a school graded as ‘requires improvement’, you have to do everything that you can to get high scores in the statutory tests.”

A long-term focus

Meanwhile, Rachel Wilkes, CEO of 17-school Humber Education Trust, where MTC results have also improved, says it has been due to a long-term focus on ensuring that children learn core skills on joining their school.

“[We] have always had a strong focus on ‘doing the basics really well’, and maths fluency is a key part of that,” she says. “Rapid recall of key maths facts, such as multiplication tables, is an important aspect of children’s fluency.”

It’s not just focusing on pupils that has helped either. Chatley says his trust has given more CPD to staff to help boost knowledge. “We had trust-wide training on multiplication as a concept, which is arguably more important than knowing the facts by heart,” he says.

“To be able to apply this knowledge really effectively, it is important that teachers and leaders invest in understanding the actual concept of multiplication and not just that 3x2=6.”

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All this sounds pretty positive. So has the MTC been a rare assessment success story for the sector? Not quite. Many are sceptical that improved results really mean anything.

One multi-academy trust CEO, who wishes to remain anonymous, highlights the format of the test as a problem, describing it as an “online speed test” for eight- and nine-year-olds that is “a very clunky way of testing their knowledge” - and one that can even cause able pupils to make mistakes.

“Children who know their tables with fluency can often do badly because of the high error rate when inputting answers into a computer programme rather than writing them down,” they say.

The CEO also points to the issue of the extra learning required to prepare pupils for the specific nature of the test.

“For the children to ‘prove’ their times tables competence in the test format provided, curriculum time is needed to ‘train’ them in answering in the given format, which is counterproductive in a primary curriculum that is already overburdened,” they say.

Rote learning

Meanwhile, Chatley questions whether the test really is proving that pupils are getting better at times tables - or whether it is just a return to rote learning. “There is a risk that children have a lot of mathematical facts but no means of applying them,” he says.

Jennie Golding, associate professor at University College London, agrees, arguing that “learning times tables by rote has skewed - and narrowed - student experiences of learning and doing mathematics”.

She says that simply learning times tables for a test of this nature might “adversely affect both attitudes to mathematics and long-term capabilities”.

Atwal puts it more bluntly: “I don’t think the MTC is particularly effective in developing a love of maths.”

Calls to scrap the MTC

Some are already calling for the MTC to be scrapped, with Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, claiming that it “adds little value” and just piles more pressure on to beleaguered schools.

“At a time when schools are grappling with severe funding pressures, spending public money on unnecessary tests like this must be dropped,” he says.

But others see value in the MTC. Gibb says teachers tell him that children “enjoy” it, while David Thomas, a former maths teacher who is now CEO of Axiom Maths, argues that the assessment is worthwhile because “knowing times tables opens up the world of multiplicative reasoning”.

“The point of maths isn’t to learn times tables but you can’t get to any of the goals of learning maths without them,” he says.

Increased pupil confidence

Teachers are also witnessing this benefit. Whitehead says she has “seen a rise in the fluency of children’s multiplication knowledge since the MTC was introduced”.

She adds that, most importantly, her pupils’ confidence has increased, with them “applying their knowledge in different mathematical situations - something I see every day now in the way they manipulate and explore numbers”.

Blunden also says “pupils’ confidence has risen” across maths study because of this regular practice.

But does learning times tables really have long-term value for other maths outcomes?

Camilla Gilmore, professor of mathematical cognition at Loughborough University, studies the role of executive function skills in mathematics learning as part of the SUM Project.

She tells Tes that a soon-to-be-published study “has shown that being able to recall multiplication facts does not automatically mean children are able to use these facts in more complex multiplications”.

“This means the efforts of schools, teachers and children in increasing multiplication fact recall are likely not translating to an overall improvement in mathematics attainment,” she says.

Gilmore adds that this can be seen in the most recent key stage 2 Sats data, which doesn’t show improvements in children reaching the expected standard compared with the previous year.

“The 2024 cohort will have been the first to have taken the MTC when it was compulsory in 2022, so we’re not seeing any early signs of this improving overall attainment.”

Others, though, think a longer-term view is needed. [“I’m] not sure we will see the true impact for a few years, as the MTC is still quite new. So results are, understandably, improving as there is more familiarity with the expectations of the test,” says Chatley.

Looking beyond Sats, Grealey says she would like to “measure the long-term impact” of the MTC by tracking results to secondary school. “It’s so important that [pupils] are retaining this knowledge,” she adds.

The future of the MTC

Overall, then, while teachers and school leaders have shown that they can improve pupil attainment in the MTC itself, there seems to be little consensus - or proof - on whether this has any benefit.

So, has the government made the best choice in requiring schools to expend curriculum time in this way?

Gibb, perhaps unsurprisingly, says it would be “a retrograde step” to ditch the MTC - and McKinnell’s comments suggest that the current Labour education team are happy to keep it.

But with a curriculum and assessment review underway and plenty of people sceptical about the test’s purpose, there’s no guarantee of a future for the MTC.

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