After MTC 2025: Ease Year 4 Anxiety | Times Tables Games

Every June, once the statutory check wraps up, there's a brief but genuinely valuable moment of reflection in schools. Teachers have fresh data, honest impressions of which children froze under pressure, and a whole year ahead of them before the next cohort sits the check. When I looked into what schools are searching for and discussing right now, this post-MTC period consistently shows a surge in questions around MTC preparation, SEND maths support and times tables intervention tools. That tells me the motivation is real and timely.

The challenge is that a lot of that search traffic leads to generic drilling apps that weren't built with anxious or neurodivergent learners in mind. Timed flashcard practice, leaderboards that shame slower processors, and rote repetition without engagement are, for many children, exactly the wrong approach.

When I read through what teachers and SENCOs describe, a few things come up again and again. A child who knows their 3s on the walk to school but blanks completely when the screen starts counting. A pupil with ADHD who can talk you through a multiplication but loses focus after four questions. A Year 3 child who has already decided they are "bad at maths" before the check is even on their radar.

The anxiety is rarely about the numbers. It is almost always about the pressure, the time, and the feeling of being watched and judged.

That distinction matters enormously for how you structure the preparation. If your intervention looks and feels like a test, it will reinforce the very association you're trying to break.

Here's what the evidence, and honestly the conversations we keep having with educators, points to as genuinely useful:

1. Start early and keep it low-stakes. Year 3 is the right time to build familiarity with times tables in a relaxed, exploratory way. Normalise the idea that multiplication is just a pattern, not a performance.

1. Use play as the primary vehicle. Children retain mathematical facts far more readily when they encounter them inside experiences they actually enjoy. Games, challenges, multiplayer formats where the social experience comes first and the maths is embedded inside it.

1. Separate fluency practice from timed testing for as long as possible. Speed will come with familiarity. Pushing speed before familiarity creates panic.

1. Make sure your SEND and neurodivergent pupils have a tool that was actually designed for them. Most mainstream maths apps were built for neurotypical learners and bolted on accessibility features as an afterthought. That gap is real and it shows.

1. Talk to parents early. By the time Year 4 starts, many parents have already picked up on their child's anxiety and have no idea what to do. A simple letter or evening conversation in the autumn term can shift the dynamic at home as well as school.

This is something I find genuinely interesting. When I looked into the reasoning behind why multiplayer formats help children with ADHD or high anxiety in particular, it comes down to attention and stakes. In a solo drilling app, every moment of hesitation is visible and counted. In a multiplayer game, there is always something happening, always a reason to stay engaged, and the social connection provides a motivational layer that pure repetition simply cannot.

For children who struggle with sustained attention, the moment-to-moment unpredictability of a game keeps the brain switched on. For anxious children, the shared experience of playing with a friend or classmate reduces the sense of individual exposure. The maths becomes part of something fun rather than the thing being tested.

As our founder Gal Darrash puts it, "We kept hearing from teachers that their most disengaged kids would suddenly light up the moment there was a game involved. That was the whole starting point for how we built this."

If I were a SENCO or a Year 4 lead looking at this year's MTC results and planning for the next cohort, here is how I would use this window. First, look at which children in your current Year 3 are already showing signs of avoidance, frustration or disengagement around multiplication. Don't wait for Year 4 to start. Second, think carefully about the tools you're putting in front of them. Does the interface feel calm and accessible? Is there any genuine element of fun, choice or social play? Was it designed with neurodivergent learners in mind, or does it assume a fairly uniform learner?

At XTables Champions, we built the app specifically because that gap existed. SEND-friendly design is not a feature we added. It is the reason the product exists. The multiplayer games are built around titles children already know and love, so the engagement is immediate rather than earned through coercion or reward stickers.

We're a young company and we're honest about that. But what we keep hearing from the schools we're speaking with is that the combination of genuine game mechanics and a calm, accessible interface is making a real difference for exactly the children that standard times tables tools leave behind.

If you're a SENCO, Year 3 or Year 4 teacher, or a senior leader who has just reviewed your MTC results and wants to think carefully about how to support anxious or neurodivergent learners in the year ahead, I'd genuinely love to connect. Get in touch with the XTables Champions team via xtableschampions.com and tell us about your cohort. We're not here to pitch you. We want to understand your situation and show you honestly whether what we've built could actually help. That conversation starts with you reaching out, and we'll take it from there.