The short answer is this: if your EdTech tool isn't genuinely engaging, children will stop using it. And right now, across the sector, that is exactly what is happening.
I've been reading a lot recently about the growing conversation around EdTech retention. The headline finding doing the rounds in 2025 is hard to ignore: learners cancel, disengage or simply drift away from digital learning tools far sooner than schools expect. Platforms get purchased, logins get created, and then, quietly, usage drops off. For schools, that represents real disappointment. For children, it means yet another thing that briefly felt exciting and then went flat.
What the research and commentary I've been following is pointing to, pretty consistently, is that gamification, meaning points, badges, leaderboards, streaks and a genuine sense of progress, is the most effective structural response to this problem. Not the only factor, but a significant one. And when I think about what we're trying to do at XTables Champions, this conversation feels very directly relevant to us.
The Retention Problem Is Real, and It Hits Times Tables Hard
Times tables practice is, let's be honest, repetitive by nature. You are drilling the same facts over and over until they become automatic. That is the entire point. But repetition without reward is the fastest route to a child deciding they'd rather do literally anything else.
From the schools we've been speaking to in our early conversations, this is one of the most common frustrations teachers raise. A child starts enthusiastically, does well for a couple of weeks, and then the motivation disappears. Parents report the same thing: the homework battle becomes a nightly standoff, and the app gets quietly deleted from the tablet.
The engagement problem in EdTech is especially acute for skills-based practice that requires consistent repetition over months, not just a few sessions. Times tables is almost the perfect example of that challenge. Which is exactly why how a platform handles motivation matters so much.
What Gamification Actually Does (Beyond Making Things "Fun")
I want to be clear that gamification isn't just about slapping a cartoon character onto a worksheet and calling it engaging. When it's done properly, it taps into something real in how children experience progress and recognition.
Points systems give immediate feedback. Completing a round and seeing a score go up tells a child's brain: you did something. That matters. Badges and achievements create what psychologists call "micro-goals", small, reachable targets that keep motivation alive between the bigger milestones. And leaderboards, when implemented thoughtfully, add a social dimension that makes practice feel connected to something beyond just the child sitting alone at a screen.
What I find genuinely interesting reading the current EdTech commentary is that leaderboards work differently depending on how they're structured. A leaderboard that only celebrates the child at the top can demotivate everyone else. But a leaderboard that tracks personal improvement, or that resets weekly so everyone has a fresh chance, keeps more children in the game. That nuance matters, especially in a primary school classroom where confidence is fragile and comparison can cut both ways.
As our founder Gal Darrash puts it, "We want every child to feel like a champion in their own progress, not just the fastest in the class."
That ethos sits at the centre of how XTables Champions is designed. The gamified elements aren't decorative. They're structural. They're there specifically because we know that without them, consistent practice over an entire school year is a very hard ask for a primary-age child.
Why Schools Should Care About This in 2025
The EdTech retention conversation has shifted this year. It's moved from being a concern for platform developers into being a live operational question for schools and teachers. If a tool doesn't sustain engagement, the school doesn't see the learning outcomes it was hoping for. That's a real problem, not an abstract one.
From the early conversations we're having, teachers are increasingly asking not just "does this tool teach the content?" but "will children actually keep using it?" That's a healthy and important question. It's exactly the right one.
For times tables specifically, the evidence around automaticity, the point where a child can recall their tables without having to work it out, is clear that it requires sustained, repeated practice over time. Weeks, not days. That means the engagement question is inseparable from the learning outcomes question. A child who stops practising in November won't be table-fluent by the time the Multiplication Tables Check comes around in June.
Gameified practice isn't a gimmick to make schools feel like they're doing something modern. It's a practical mechanism for keeping children at the table, so to speak, for long enough to actually learn.
What We're Seeing at XTables Champions
We're a young company and I won't overclaim here. But what we keep hearing from early users is that the competitive, gamified structure of XTables Champions changes the dynamic around practice at home. Children start asking to do it, rather than being reminded. Teachers tell us pupils are talking about their scores with each other. That social buzz is exactly the kind of intrinsic motivation loop that the EdTech retention research points to as the difference between a platform that sticks and one that doesn't.
We're building on this. The gamification layer in XTables Champions is something we think about carefully, because we know that getting it right is what determines whether a child still finds the platform compelling in March as much as they did in September.
Want to See How XTables Champions Keeps Pupils Engaged All Year?
If you're a teacher, a school leader or a parent who has felt the frustration of EdTech tools that lose children's attention by half-term, I'd genuinely love to show you what we're doing differently at XTables Champions.
The gamification in our platform is built to sustain practice across the full academic year, not just generate excitement in the first week. If that sounds like something your school needs, get in touch with us at xtableschampions.com. Tell us about your class, your challenges with times tables practice, and let's talk about whether XTables Champions could be the right fit. We're a small, founder-led team and we respond personally. No automated funnels, just a real conversation.