Times Tables by heart?

There are lots of YouTube tricks for learning tables. Depends on a child's learning style. Some can sing them to learn, cds available .

.What ever happens, learning tables is vital and is certainly labour intensive. No easy route unless a child has a photographic memory. IMO.

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Yes, one of the Level 6 papers allows a calculator

Yes, I believe it was removed in 2014 for levels 3-5. Though still allowed at level 6 perhaps?

BTW Anya I think KS2 tests are both non calculator papers these days

I was a primary school teacher and now do private maths tutoring. Knowing the times tables is something I always taught, and not just by rote though this is invaluable for quick recall. Reciting them out loud and rhythmically is a really good way, and I still recommend to my private pupils to do this whilst walking along - like Shizam.
At age 10/11 we recited tables every day, including all the (non metric) measurements (22 yards - one chain, 10 chains one furlong etc) weights and fractions of £1.
Teaching these days should take into account modern technology and the ways we use it - anyone with a mobile phone usually has access to a calculator - but it also needs to be understood, and this is a major aspect of what I teach these days - applying your knowledge to everyday situations.

Best if you consider 9 to be 09

Yes, note the number pattern in the 9x table

9
18
27
36
45

54
63
72
81
90

She how the units column goes down in ones and the tens column goes up in ones.

Also half way through the numbers are reversed eg 45 54; 36. 63; 27 72... etc it's a lovely table to kearn because of this

Correct Lully one of the two KS2 Maths paper allows the use of calculators as it is more a test of understanding. I'm surprised a teacher didn't know that, unless she is not au fait with Y6 perhaps?

Footnote,
My daughter taught me to do the 9 times table on my fingers.
1x9 put down your first digit - your thumb - you have 9 fingers left
2x9 put down your 2nd digit 1 finger one side 8 on the other 18
3x9 put down your 3rd digit 2 fingers one side 7 the other. 27
4x9 put down your 4th digit. 3 fingers one side 6 the other 36
And so on.

Any more tricks anyone.

I was very good at maths but useless at learning things by rote. I was good at maths because I could understand the concept and follow the process. I did eventually learn my tables and often use them now. I usually have to start mid table and work from there. E.g 7x7=49 so 6x is 42 and 8x is 56. So I never learnt them like a parrot and I might not have done well in these tests.

It is all "smoke and mirrors" with governments' policies.
They are always trying to prove 'they' made a difference and choose the easiest things, that make good headlines and that the general public will hook into, to use as a measure!

Everyone,(see this thread !) has an opinion on times tables and if you insinuate enough that they are not being taught well enough people believe it whether it is true or not! People then rely on anecdotes about themselves , their kids/grankids etc to justify their opinion but that is a very small sample to base national policy on!

Some daft person at the DfE in a 'policy development unit', who most likely only left school 5 or 6 years ago and with a PPE who has never been 'teacher side' will have come up with this good idea to demonstrate the impact of current education policy and gain a career point.
Cynical...yes I am!

KS2 Mathematics test understanding and surely ability to know tables.

Test, test test as we obviously can't trust the teachers!!!! Glad I retired.

I do believe the craze for not teaching tables was dead and gone in 70s and 80s. My son's learned their tables as juniors in the 80s and GC know them now. Why can't the government rely on 'in school ' accountability? It's all propaganda to knock the profession.

crun- I truly thing it is not a good idea to believe we will always have calculators and computers to hand ...

Maybe we should have testing for politicians- if you don't know your tables and your spellings you can't stand (or maybe you don't get paid!!)

Which means that they themselves do not understand the difference - probably because politicians in general are more likely to have dropped mathematical studies early and concentrated on other subjects.

But Anya the government are not proposing testing understanding- just rote learning for tables.

Bully for you crun - you raise the standard of debate to a whole new level.

Of course, common usage is the key. This is why scaffolders understand Pythagoras - though they call it the 3;4;5 rule

However we are discussing primary school children and for any calculations over a certain level they would be encouraged to use a calculator rather than struggle with, as an example 'long' division.

And it's not a case of being 'well off' (?) if you can remember know your tables and understand them, it's usually the aim of the class teacher that children assimilate both knowledge and understanding.

That's not what I said. Of course you're well off if you can remember tables and understand, but memorising tables is not a substitute for understanding. There's a limit to how many practical calculations use the product of two integers between 2 and 12, and hence a limit to the usefulness of memorising them. In my field, reciprocals are common, so I can recite the reciprocals of integers off the top of my head, but not because I made an effort to learn them, it's just from common usage.

I know 1/2π = 0.159, for example, but only because it's very common.

So 4x3.5 could be 4x7 halved or 2x3.5 doubled.

I suppose it's a question of mental agility.

Just because you know your number bonds does not mean you don't understand. The two are not mutually exclusive and best go hand in hand.

In fact those who don't need a calculator to work out 4x7 and understand that that's the same as 2x7 doubled make the best mathematicians.

In an age when we have calculators, it seems to me that it's having a dog and barking yourself, we're be better off teaching maths rather than arithmetic. It's also more important to understand the process than memorise answers, someone who knows how to multiply but can't remember tables can do 0.175 x 8¾, but someone who knows the tables but doesn't know what they mean will be lost.

I saw this time and time again at work, the difference between a good engineer and a bad one was usually the difference between those who understood what they'd been taught and those who had just memorised it parrot-fashion to pass an exam.

nfk i wonder if they still teach business arithmetic in schools - i personally think that it is much more useful for most than mathematics. The only bit of maths i ever used after school was pi. I used to work for a firm that cleaned and repaired carpets and it was useful, when working out estimates to be able to work out how much new fringe was needed for a circular chinese rug, and the surface area for cost of cleaning when the repair foreman had purloined your calculator, which he frequently did!

As a primary Maths specialist I truly believe that every child is a mathematician until someone tells him or her they're not.

In the same way that John Lennin though every child is an artist until someone disillusions them.

Or children know the can sing until told otherwise.

Which is why I love the Eric Morecambe classic that he was playing the right notes though not necessarily in the right order.

A good teacher will help her pupils find the 'right order' and give them back that confidence.