Year 6 pupils to sit times tables test in 2019

In the next two years, primary school pupils in their final year will have to sit a times tables check.

Schools minister Nick Gibb has confirmed that Year 6 children will be tested on their times tables in the spring of 2019, alongside their Sats tests.

Plans for these tests were laid out in the Conservatives’ election manifesto in 2015, and the proposals were first announced by the former education secretary, Nicky Morgan, in January 2016.

The plans were previously put on hold by education secretary Justine Greening, as she said there would be no new tests or assessments brought in before the academic year of 2018 and 2019.

Gibb confirmed these plans to the Commons Education Select Committee and told MPs that it is his view that there should be a multiplication check.

He said: "It was in our manifesto in 2015. We think times tables are a very important part of mathematical knowledge.

“If a child was trying to perform long multiplication or long division they needed to know their times tables.

"It's why it was in our manifesto," Mr Gibb said. "It's why we are introducing a multiplication check in 2018-19."

However, Anne Watson, emeritus professor of mathematics education at the University of Oxford, believes that some pupils could struggle with the new test.

She said: "My main concern is what he [Mr Gibb] has in mind for the children who do not pass the test.

"This group will include children with undiagnosed dyslexia, test anxiety, possibly some with a slower physical response if this is a timed test, and might even include those who have perfectly good and fast methods of retrieval that do not fit with the test design.”