A Little Bit Everyday

(Part 1....)

Based on recent discussions with leaders and Year 4 teachers, the headlines from the 2022 MTC* were a surprise for most ….

... Only 27% of pupils achieving full marks (18% were disadvantaged, compared to 30% who were not)

... The average score being 19.8 out of 25. 

... Disadvantaged children who took the test achieving an average score of 17.9. 

One thing that maybe isn’t a surprise is the fact that asking children to ‘play’ online apps to recall multiplication facts as quickly as possible to be ‘top of the leaderboard’ is clearly not the way to support ALL children tackle the MTC … or more importantly, support ALL children seek a proper understanding of the mathematics to which they relate. 

So what can be done to improve things for Year 4 children and teachers this year? 

Well let’s start with ‘What are the issues Year 4 teachers are currently grappling with?’ …

• Will my Year children know all the facts especially the ones with greater weighting* on the MTC?

*see table below for the MTC facts with the greater weighting

• Will my Year 4 children be able to use the technology?
• How do I develop my children’s understanding of the multiplicative composition of numbers rather than just recalling isolated facts?

So let’s think about a different strategy to address these issues , such as …. a little bit everyday for the next 100 school days !! (yes that’s how long there is until the 2023 MTC … all children can seriously improve during this time!).

And when we say a ‘little bit’, we mean just five minutes.

So let’s pretend the MTC is our World Cup final, our Olympic Final, our London Marathon or the our World Champion Boxing Fight … yes I’m feeling all Rocky Balboa all of a sudden (cue Rocky theme music!!)

What if  …. we think of:

• Term 3 as our ‘working hard at training camp’ period to make sure we have the ‘foundation facts’ in place and belief that we can succeed
  • ALL improve recalling facts from the 2/5/10 tables and then 3/4/8 tables within 6 seconds and then 5 seconds
  • ALL check they security of facts from the multiplication tables 
  • ALL improve their knowledge of 4 weighted MTC facts 
     
• Term 4 ‘working harder’ to make sure we have more ‘foundation facts’ in place and belief that we can succeed
  • ALL improve recalling facts from the 6/7/8 tables and then 9/11/12 tables within 6 seconds and then 5 seconds
  • ALL check they security of facts from the multiplication tables 
  • ALL improve their knowledge of 6 more weighted MTC facts 
     
• Term 5 we focus on ‘getting stronger’ ready for the big day in June
  • ALL improve recalling facts from the tables within 4 seconds 
  • ALL check they security of facts from the multiplication tables 
  • ALL improve their knowledge of 6 more weighted MTC facts 
     
• Term 6 we’re ‘gonna fly’** and smash the MTC!

** yep these phrases are from the lyrics of the Rocky theme!! 

But of course … the quality of what we do in those 5 minutes is key.

We could let children just play on an ‘online’ app … but we know that clearly didn’t work for all children last year!

Click here to see our suggestions for how you can utilise these 'five minutes a day'...