'Just Bad at Maths' and Stopped Trying | Times Tables App

When I looked into the KHDA's inclusive education directives, what struck me wasn't the bureaucratic language. It was the practical implication for day-to-day teaching. Schools aren't just being asked to have an inclusion policy on paper. They're being asked to demonstrate that the tools students use, including digital learning tools, are genuinely accessible and appropriate for students with a range of needs.

For maths, that's a high bar. Maths anxiety is already widespread among primary-age learners globally, and for children with dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADHD or autism, standard drill-and-repeat times-tables software can actively make things worse. Heavy on pressure, light on adaptability. It's a real problem.

The schools we've spoken to in the international sector tell us they've been through exactly this audit process. Governors and senior leaders aren't just asking "does this tool work?" They're asking "does this tool work for our neurodiverse students specifically?"

Here's what I'm seeing in the conversations we're having with schools early in our own journey: engagement is the bottleneck, not curriculum content. Teachers know what children need to learn. The challenge is building a consistent, low-anxiety pathway to practise it.

Gamification, done well, solves that. Not gamification in the superficial "earn a sticker" sense, but genuine game mechanics that children already understand and enjoy, built around multiplayer interaction that motivates without humiliating. When a child is playing a game they love, the act of recalling a times-table becomes part of the game, not a test they might fail.

This is the single most important design principle behind XTables Champions: the maths has to live inside the game, not sit alongside it.

For neurodiverse learners especially, this distinction is enormous. A child with ADHD who struggles to sit through a worksheet will play the same maths game for twenty minutes without prompting. A child with maths anxiety who freezes in timed tests will attempt the same problem inside a game context without the same fear response. It's not magic. It's just better design.

As our founder Gal Darrash puts it, *"We built this for the kids who always got left behind in maths, not as an afterthought, but as the whole point."*

If your school is going through a KHDA review, or preparing for one, here's how I'd think about evaluating any maths EdTech tool against inclusion criteria.

First, look at the sensory and cognitive load. Does the interface reduce unnecessary clutter? Is there flexibility in how information is presented? A tool that bombards students with flashing timers and alarm sounds is unlikely to serve a child with sensory processing differences, regardless of what the marketing says.

Second, check for anxiety-aware design. Does the software penalise wrong answers harshly? Does it use public leaderboards that expose struggling learners? These features might seem minor, but for a child with maths anxiety or low self-esteem around numeracy, they can undo months of progress.

Third, consider what multiplayer actually means in practice. Social learning, when structured properly, builds confidence. Multiplayer maths games can create positive peer experiences around a subject that many children associate with stress and embarrassment. But only if the design is thoughtful, not competitive in a way that singles out weaker students.

XTables Champions is built with all of this in mind. The games children use are ones they're already drawn to, and the multiplayer element is structured to build rather than undermine confidence. We're a young company, and I won't pretend we have decades of longitudinal data behind us. But what we keep hearing from teachers is that children who previously refused to engage with times-tables practice are playing voluntarily at home. That matters.

One thing I hear from international school leaders in the UAE is that curriculum alignment is non-negotiable. A tool designed purely for the English National Curriculum doesn't always map cleanly onto what American or IB schools need. When I looked into this for our own positioning, it became clear that times-tables fluency sits at the core of maths progression in all the major curricula used in Dubai's premium international schools, British, American and otherwise.

The specific milestones vary, but the underlying need doesn't: children need automatic recall of multiplication facts to access higher maths confidently. XTables Champions supports that fluency pathway regardless of which curriculum framework a school follows. The focus is on the mathematical foundations themselves, not on a single national syllabus.

The KHDA's move is part of something bigger. Across the Gulf, there's a growing recognition that premium education means genuinely inclusive education, not just high facilities and strong exam results. Schools that can demonstrate a real commitment to neurodiverse learners are differentiating themselves. Parents of children with SEND in the UAE are increasingly demanding it, and regulatory bodies are increasingly requiring it.

For EdTech companies, this is a real inflection point. Generic tools won't be enough. Schools will start asking harder questions, and rightly so.

If you're a SENCO, Year 4 to 6 teacher, or senior leader at an international school in the UAE, and you're thinking about how your maths software holds up against KHDA inclusion standards, I'd genuinely love to hear from you.

XTables Champions was built specifically for children with maths anxiety, SEND and neurodiverse needs. We're at an early stage as a company, which means you'll get a real conversation with people who care deeply about getting this right, not a sales script.

Visit xtableschampions.com and get in touch directly. Tell us about your school, your learners, and what you're trying to solve. We'll take it from there.