How pupils are set to break world record for times tables
As the first times tables check approaches, a charity maths event will see primary pupils come together to attempt to break a world record on National Numeracy Day
Are you ready to rock? Are you ready, steady, ready to roll?”
Ask these questions to a bunch of 16-year-olds and their teachers and you may get some bemused looks. Ask it to a classroom of Year 4 students, however, and you’re likely to be met with squeals of excitement.
That’s because what follows these questions is times tables recall: not, typically, the most exciting part of any pupils’ day.
But for over a decade now, times tables and rock ‘n’ roll have gone hand-in-hand thanks to former maths teacher Bruno Reddy’s Times Tables Rock Stars (TTRS) programme.
And this week, the National Numeracy charity is taking things one step further, with a rock ‘n’ roll nationwide times tables event for National Numeracy Day on Wednesday 18 May.
According to Sam Sims, chief executive of the charity, the aim is to inspire a nation of children to feel “number confident with maths in everyday life”.
“What better way to help put children on the path to feeling good about numbers than a song and dance?” he adds.
The event, arguably, couldn’t have come at a better time for primary schools: in the next few weeks, Year 4 children in England will be taking part in the first times table check, a new statutory assessment.
As part of the warm-up to Wednesday’s event, TTRS has been hosting a daily YouTube show for pupils between the ages of 6 and 14. The show includes rolling numbers sessions - a high-energy, call-and-response chant of times tables.
Reddy, the founder and chief executive of Maths Circle, the creators of TTRS, says that the majority of classes tuning into the show have been Year 4s, “whose teachers are working hard to upskill and enthuse their pupils”.
“Rolling numbers each morning has definitely achieved those two goals,” he says.
So how is the event on National Numeracy Day going to work?
At 9.30 on Wednesday morning, Reddy’s rockstar alter-ego, Baz Wynter, will be going live on Youtube to host a “record-breaking” session of rolling numbers. The five times table has been chosen and the stream will last around 10 minutes.
The event will be streamed from the King Solomon Academy in London and, as well as being joined by National Numeracy ambassadors dancer Katya Jones, maths legend Bobby Seagull and education secretary Nadhim Zahawi, representatives from the Guinness Book of Records will also be in attendance.
National Numeracy and Reddy are hoping to break the record for the “most viewers of a rolling numbers livestream on YouTube”.
TTRS has also launched an “Officially Unofficial Multiplication Tables Check”, which is essentially a mock test taken under the same conditions as the real assessment in June.
Reddy says that, in just five school days, 27,800 Year 4 children in England have already taken part.
But the upcoming rock ‘n’ roll event is what he expects pupils to really be excited by.
“Rocking and rolling numbers is a fantastic way to get everyone in the room enthusiastic about the tables at the same time and this mass participation event - livestreamed on our YouTube channel - will give the nation a collective boost in number confidence,” Reddy says.
The ambition, for both Maths Circle and National Numeracy, he adds, is that “one day every child will become an adult who can say ‘I am good at maths’”.
You don’t need to have a TTRS account to join in on Wednesday. The event will be accessible here.
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