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What is it?
There is little doubt that the ability to fluently recall times table facts is a huge advantage across many areas of the mathematics students need to learn at school, from fractions to ratio, equations to angle facts. However, once students are able to recall times tables, the next step is to enable them to flexibly use these relationships in a variety of contexts. That is where this wonderful collection of resources comes into play. For exam times table there are three sets of 10 questions. These questions do not simply ask things such as “what is 4 x 8?” Instead they probe students deeper with a variety of word problems, challenges to convince why something works, and links to decimals. If students can do these, then mastery of times tables is in sight.

How can it be used?
With three sets of questions for each times table there are plenty of questions to keep students occupied. Using a couple of these sheets each week with a key stage 3 class, especially at the start of the year, might be a good idea. However, I have two quick points to make. The first is that these sheets are only really effective if students are fluent in the basics of times tables. If students are having to use up valuable working memory capacity trying to calculate, for example, what 4 x 7 is, then the challenge of applying this to solve a word problem or a related question involving a decimal is likely to be too much. Secondly, once students have been through one cycle of these sheets, there is a fantastic opportunity to interleave. Simply copying a question from each of the times tables and creating a super sheet is a great way to push students on to the next level, calling upon all their times table knowledge at once.

Thanks so much for sharing
Craig Barton

Download: Times Table Mastery.
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