The 2026 Multiplication Tables Check takes place between 1 and 12 June 2026, and right now, with Spring term already underway, schools have roughly one term to close the gaps. Here is my honest take: the pressure is real, but the solution most schools default to, drilling flashcards and worksheets until children are exhausted and anxious, is one of the main reasons only 37% of Year 4 pupils achieve full marks nationally. If we want better results this June, we need to rethink how we are spending that prep time.
What the National Data Is Actually Telling Us
When I looked into the most recent national attainment data on the MTC, a few things stood out immediately. The headline figure, that fewer than four in ten pupils score full marks, is alarming enough on its own. But the attainment gaps underneath that headline are what really concern me. Disadvantaged pupils and those with identified SEN needs score significantly lower on average, and the gap does not close simply by adding more practice time. In many cases it widens, because the children who already find maths stressful are the ones who suffer most under intensive drill conditions.
Schools in London and other urban areas with higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils are particularly exposed here. The pressure to perform in a timed, screen-based check is not just an academic challenge; for a lot of Year 4 children, it is a genuine source of anxiety that interferes with their ability to demonstrate what they actually know.
Why Rote Drilling Is the Wrong Tool for This Job
I want to be direct about something: rote memorisation can produce short-term recall, but it is fragile. A child who has repeated "six times seven is forty-two" two hundred times may freeze completely in a timed environment because the memory is stored as a sequence, not as a concept. The MTC is adaptive and timed at six seconds per question. That format punishes children who have learned by rote without developing any underlying fluency.
For children with dyslexia, ADHD, or working memory differences, this is compounded further. Rote learning places enormous demands on the exact cognitive processes that many SEN pupils find hardest. These children are not less capable of understanding multiplication; they often just need a different route in.
What I keep hearing from the schools we speak to early on in our conversations with them is that they already know drilling is not working for their most vulnerable pupils. They are looking for something that builds genuine fluency, something children will actually engage with, and something that does not eat up enormous amounts of teacher time to administer.
A Different Approach: Learning Through Games Children Already Love
This is exactly where XTables Champions comes in, and I say this not as a sales pitch but because the logic is straightforward. Children build fluency fastest when they are not consciously thinking about learning. When a child is mid-game, focused on beating their opponent at Snap or working out their next move in Connect Four, their brain is retrieving and applying multiplication facts repeatedly, but without the performance anxiety that a timed drill creates.
The games on the XTables Champions platform are built around the same formats children already play at home and in the playground: Snap, Connect Four, Bingo, Guess Who, Battleship. The content is times tables; the experience is play. And crucially, the Show Me How™ visual breakdowns mean that when a child gets something wrong, they see why, not just that they got it wrong. That is the difference between fragile recall and actual understanding.
As our founder Gal Darrash puts it, "We built this because we kept seeing children who knew their tables in the kitchen but went blank the moment someone put a clock on them. The problem was never the child."
Using Analytics to Find the Gaps Before June
One thing I would genuinely encourage every Year 4 teacher and SENCO to think about right now is where their pupils' specific gaps are. A blanket "practise all tables" approach from January to June is inefficient. The MTC covers all tables from two to twelve, but most children have clusters of facts that are weaker than others, typically the sevens, eights and nines, and within those, certain number combinations that simply have not clicked yet.
The analytics dashboard in XTables Champions shows exactly which facts individual children are struggling with, and it flags SEN-relevant patterns so that SENCOs can identify who needs additional support before the check window opens. For a class teacher managing thirty children, that visibility changes what is possible in the time available. You are not guessing; you are targeting.
From the early conversations we are having with schools, this kind of granular data is one of the things teachers find most useful, not because it generates reports for reports' sake, but because it makes the limited prep time they do have count for more.
What Good MTC Prep Actually Looks Like in Practice
If I were advising a Year 4 teacher right now, here is what I would say. Start by identifying which multiplication facts each child is genuinely shaky on rather than treating the whole class as a uniform group. Build regular, short game sessions into the week rather than long drilling blocks. Ten to fifteen minutes of engaged, social play beats forty-five minutes of worksheets that half the class have mentally checked out of.
For pupils with maths anxiety, the reframe matters enormously. Framing times tables practice as a game, something where trying is safe and getting it wrong just means you learn the next bit, lowers the emotional stakes in a way that pays dividends come June. The MTC is still a check; children will know it matters. But if they have spent the previous months building fluency through low-stakes play, the check feels like showing off what they know rather than being caught out.
For SEN pupils specifically, the combination of visual scaffolding, game-based repetition, and no time pressure during practice is particularly powerful. When the six-second timer arrives in June, they are drawing on genuine fluency rather than scrambling to recall a memorised sequence under pressure.
Ready to Give Your Year 4s a Better Run-Up to June?
If you are a teacher, SENCO, or school leader thinking about how to use the remainder of this term effectively, I would love to tell you more about how XTables Champions works in practice. We are a young company, genuinely early in our growth, and the conversations we are having with schools right now are shaping what we build next. That means you get a team that actually listens.
Get in touch via xtableschampions.com to talk through how the platform can support your Year 4 cohort ahead of the June 2026 MTC window. Whether you are looking to run lunchtime clubs, integrate it into your existing maths lessons, or target specific pupils who need extra support, we can help you work out what makes sense for your school.