If your Year 4 class sits in the South East or East of England, the 2025 Multiplication Tables Check results are worth looking at carefully. The national picture shows a persistent regional gap, and if you are teaching in one of the lower-performing areas, there is a real, practical reason to act on this now, well before the 2026 window opens.
The government published the 2025 MTC attainment data through Explore Education Statistics, and when I looked into the regional breakdown, one figure stopped me: the South East and East of England recorded an average MTC score of 20.7, compared to London's average of 21.7. That one-point difference might sound small on paper, but spread across thousands of Year 4 pupils, it reflects a meaningful and consistent pattern. Local authorities including Halton and the Isle of Wight are among those sitting furthest below the national average. These are real schools, real classrooms, and real children who are not yet where they could be.
This piece is my attempt to make sense of what those numbers mean in practice, and more importantly, what teachers and maths leads can start doing about it today.
What the 2025 MTC Data Is Actually Telling Us
The average MTC score nationally is 20.5 out of 25, which means a significant proportion of Year 4 pupils are still not achieving confident, fluent recall across all required tables. The check is designed to test six-second recall under time pressure. It is not a test of whether a child can eventually work out 7x8; it is a test of whether they know it immediately.
When I read through the regional data, what stood out was that the gap is not random. London consistently outperforms the rest of England, and that pattern has been present across multiple years. There are many possible reasons: curriculum delivery variation, teaching time allocated to tables practice, the tools schools are using, and how much structured repetition pupils are getting. But the gap does not close by itself.
For maths leads in the South East, East of England, and the specific local authorities sitting below average, this data is a signal worth acting on, not filing away.
Why Six-Second Recall Matters More Than Getting the Right Answer
One thing I keep coming back to in conversations around the MTC is how often the fluency piece gets underestimated. A child can be taught a method for calculating a times table fact, but the MTC is not assessing methods. It is assessing automaticity, the ability to retrieve a fact in under six seconds without conscious calculation.
That kind of recall requires a specific kind of practice: repeated, spaced, low-stakes retrieval over time. Cramming the week before the check does not build it. What builds it is consistent daily exposure, immediate feedback, and a structure that gradually increases challenge as a child's confidence grows.
From the schools we speak to, this is one of the sticking points. Teachers know their pupils need more practice, but finding the time in an already packed school day, and making that practice genuinely engaging rather than a chore, is the real challenge.
As our founder Gal Darrash puts it, *"We built XTables Champions because children need to feel like they're competing and winning, not just drilling. The moment it becomes a game they want to play, the repetitions take care of themselves."*
Practical Strategies for Year 4 Teachers Before the 2026 Check
Here is what I would prioritise if I were a maths lead in one of the underperforming regions right now.
Start with a realistic baseline. Before you can close a gap, you need to know where each pupil actually stands. Run a short diagnostic across all 25 table combinations and note not just accuracy but speed. Some children will have most facts secure; others will have significant gaps in specific tables like 7, 8 and 12.
Build daily retrieval into the routine, not as a lesson, but as a habit. Even five focused minutes at the start of the day, using a consistent format pupils know well, compounds over weeks. The structure matters more than the duration.
Focus first on the tables that cause the most difficulty nationally. Eights, sevens and twelves consistently trip children up. Targeted, repeated exposure to these, before broadening out, tends to yield faster improvement than covering everything evenly.
Use competitive formats where they fit your class. Many children respond very differently to practice when there is a light competitive element, whether that is personal bests, class leaderboards, or timed challenges against themselves. This is not about pressure; it is about engagement. A child who is genuinely interested in beating their own score will practise more willingly and more often.
Monitor by specific fact, not just by average. An average score of 18 out of 25 tells you very little on its own. Knowing that a child is consistently missing 6x8, 7x9 and 8x8 tells you exactly where to focus next.
What This Means for Schools in the South East, East of England, Halton and the Isle of Wight
If your school sits in one of the regions or local authorities the 2025 data highlights, I would not wait until spring 2026 to start structured intervention. The MTC window will be here faster than it feels, and meaningful fluency takes time to build.
In our early conversations with primary schools, what we hear most is that teachers want something that works without creating more planning. They need practice that is structured enough to be effective, engaging enough that pupils buy into it, and clear enough that progress is visible. That is exactly what XTables Champions is designed to do: give Year 4 pupils a consistent, motivating way to build genuine six-second recall, one session at a time.
The 2025 data is not a verdict on any school or any teacher. It is information. And information is only useful if you do something with it.
Talk to Us About Getting Your Class MTC-Ready
If you are a Year 4 teacher or maths lead who wants to see how XTables Champions supports MTC preparation, especially in schools in the South East or East of England, get in touch with us at xtableschampions.com. Tell us where your class currently stands and what your biggest challenge is. We are a young company and we are genuinely here to help schools find what works, not to sell you something that does not fit.