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A friend rang in the first week of school with a question many of you have probably heard. I am recounting our conversation because there might be something in it for you.

Friend: Y has just started Year 7 and is going to need help with maths. Would you have time to help?

Friend: They seem to have started the year by revising arithmetic like adding and multiplying, so she's all right at the moment. Although she commented the other day that she probably should have made more effort to learn times tables in primary school. Me: Ahh.That could be a starting point. You said neither of you have a lot of time at the moment, so how about I show you an easy to explain and easy to start activity for times tables learning. You can do it together for just a few minutes every couple of days and if it works it will help to build her confidence. Friend: Okay Me: All phones have a calculator app. You find yours, I'll find mine and we'll put our phones on loud speaker. Friend: Done.

Me: I'll teach you the activity by doing it with you. You know your times tables so we'll use the 13 times table. Friend: Oh. Me: I'll tell you what I am doing on my phone. You don't do anything yet. Right, I am pressing 13 ... now times ... now a secret number ... now equals. Now I will tell you that the answer on my screen is 104. You can write that down if you want to. Now, you repeat what I did as I say it again. Clear your calculator first. Now, enter 13, press times, now enter your best guess at my secret number, then press equals. Friend: ... now equals. Awww. Me: Tell me what happened. Friend: I got 117.

Me: Good that's a piece of data. Does it tell you anything?

Friend: I guessed too high. I guessed 9.

Me: Do it again with a different guess.

Friend: I'll try 8. ... Yes! (accompanied by a hint of excitement).

Me: Great. You took 2 tries to get it, so you get two points. Then we repeat the game but you challenge me with a secret. We play for a number of rounds and the person with the least points wins.

Friend: I like it. I can do that with Y. She's got a pretty busy after school program already, but we can fit that in. It'll be a bit of fun together.

Me: Did you feel a little buzz when you got it? It sounded like you did.

Friend: Yeah I did.

Me: That's a positive for learning.

Friend: Yeah and I wasn't wrong with my first guess. I was just collecting data. That's not scary.

Me: Excellent you two work on that for a while and get back to me when you're ready. Two more things to back it up. Firstly get hold of a times tables chart, or write one out. Get Y to highlight all the one's she's confident with. You know what I mean. You call them out in any order and she whips back the answer in a blink. And, I'll send you a link to a terrifying activity called Times Tables Torture that was designed in lockdown to help parents support their kids. It's pretty scary, but have a look and see what you think.

Friend: Thanks I'm looking forward to helping her now. Bye.

Later I sent:

I hope you have made time to introduce Y to Six Times today. Here's the Times Tables Torture link (see Link List below). You can get started from the short version which begins the notes and includes a terrifying video. If you need more detail about any of the steps it's in the section following the short version. Working with both for a small amount of time a couple of times each per week, will make a difference to her confidence and fluency with times tables. As she becomes confident with new ones, she highlights them on the chart. Tables are certainly not the be all and end all of mathematics, but either you know them and can use them as an efficient and effective tool in the real work of a mathematician, which is investigating interesting problems, or you don't know them and are creating a stumbling block for yourself when you start investigating patterns.

The next day I was pleased to receive:

Thanks so much for all of that! The terrifying video is really good - and the explanations are very clear!