Times tables, and the Year 4 check
Times tables, and the Year 4 check
The short version
- Almost every Year 4 child in England does a times tables check in June. It is 25 questions and takes about five minutes.
- There are six seconds per question. So it is testing whether your child knows the answer, not whether they can work it out.
- There is no pass mark. The government has not set one.
What is the check?
It is a short test on a screen. Your child answers 25 times table questions.
They get three practice questions first. Then they have six seconds for each real question. The whole thing takes no more than five minutes on average.
It covers times tables up to 12.
Every Year 4 child in a state school in England takes it, in June. Your school will tell you the week.
Six seconds. Why does that matter?
Because it changes what practice should look like, and most parents get this wrong.
Six seconds is not enough time to work anything out. Your child cannot count up in sevens. They cannot do 7 × 8 by doing 7 × 4 and doubling it. Those are good methods, and they are useless here.
The check is testing instant recall — the answer arriving without any working.
So practice that helps is practice that builds speed. Short bursts, repeated often. Practice that does not help is long sessions of working things out on paper, however much they look like maths.
The government's own line is that you do not need to do anything extra. Teachers may ask you to practise times tables at home, and that is normal, but there is no expectation that you run a programme.
There is no pass mark
This is worth saying twice, because almost everyone assumes there is one.
From the government's leaflet: "There is no pass mark for the check."
Your child's teacher will share the score with you. Schools use the results to spot children who need more help. There is no line your child passes or fails.
So when the score comes home, treat it as information, not a verdict. And if your child asks whether they passed, the honest answer is that there was nothing to pass.
How to practise without a row
Times tables cause more arguments at kitchen tables than anything else in primary maths. A few things that help.
Keep it short. Five minutes. Really five minutes. Stop while they are still willing.
Do one table at a time. Not "the times tables". The 6s, until the 6s are solid. Then the 7s. Trying to do all of them at once is why children feel they are getting nowhere.
Do it out of order. If your child can only get to 7 × 8 by singing through the whole 7 times table, they do not know it yet. Ask them at random.
Practise the ones they get wrong, not the ones they get right. Most children know the 2s, 5s and 10s early. The hard ones are usually 6, 7, 8 and 12. That is where the five minutes should go.
Use dead time. In the car. Walking to school. Waiting for pasta to boil. It stops it being a Thing.
Never turn it into a punishment. The moment times tables become what happens when a child is in trouble, you have lost. It is very hard to get back.
Why do times tables matter anyway?
A fair question, and the answer is not "because the test exists".
The government's reason is that fluent recall of times tables is essential for future success in mathematics. That sounds like a slogan, but it is mechanically true.
Almost everything in later maths — division, fractions, percentages, ratio, algebra — sits on top of multiplication. A child who has to stop and work out 6 × 7 in the middle of a fractions question has run out of room in their head before they get to the actual problem.
It is like reading. You cannot enjoy a story if you are still working out each word.
What if my child needs support?
There are access arrangements — adjustments to how the check is taken — for children who need them. The check is designed to work for as many children as possible, including those with special educational needs or disabilities, and children learning English.
Your child's teacher sorts this out before June. If you are worried about your child being able to access the check, talk to the school. That is the government's own advice.
There are also cases where the school decides it is not appropriate for a child to take it at all.
Things that help at home
| What | Why it works |
|---|---|
| A wall chart | It gets looked at without anyone making it a lesson. Put it where they eat |
| Flash cards | Good for the random-order problem. Keep the ones they get wrong in a separate pile |
| A wipe-clean practice book | Removes the "I've used up the page" problem, so mistakes cost nothing |
| Physical counters | For a child who does not yet see what multiplication is, arranging 24 counters into 4 rows of 6 does more than any drill |
Our game for this
Crumb Tables is the one we would point you at, because it is built for exactly this problem.
It does one set at a time rather than all of them at once. Get most of a set right and it moves you on. It is short, so it fits the five-minute rule, and children will do it without being asked, which is the part that actually decides whether practice happens.
It is free and there is nothing to buy inside it. There are adverts around the game — that is how the site is paid for — and on a page built for children they are matched to the page rather than to your child. No amount of money makes the puzzle easier.
Where this comes from
- Multiplication tables check: information for parents, Standards and Testing Agency, Crown copyright 2025. Everything factual here — June, Year 4, 25 questions, three practice questions, six seconds each, five minutes on average, tables up to 12, access arrangements, and no pass mark — comes from that leaflet.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
About us
And who we are: CrumbJar is a British puzzle-games studio. We make daily word and number games that children and adults play on a screen, and the games are free. So we have an interest in you thinking well of screens, and an interest in you buying things through our links. We would rather you knew that than found out.