Surviving the MTC: How to Support Your Neurodivergent Child Without Timed Drills

When I looked into the research on timed testing and maths anxiety, one thing stood out clearly: the problem is not difficulty. Children who know their tables can still freeze when a clock is involved. For children with ADHD, autism, dyscalculia or generalised anxiety, that freeze response is not a character flaw. It is a physiological stress reaction, the same fight-or-flight response that makes their heart pound and their working memory temporarily collapse.

The six-second window in the MTC is specifically what makes it so hard for neurodivergent learners, not because they cannot do the maths, but because the format punishes processing speed differences rather than testing genuine knowledge.

What I keep seeing in the conversations we are having with parents and schools is that children who have spent weeks drilling answers under time pressure often arrive at the check more anxious, not less. The drilling reinforces the idea that speed equals worth. For a child who already worries about being "bad at maths", that is a damaging message.

I am not saying abandon all practice. In the days remaining of check week, what actually helps is reducing the emotional temperature around the topic rather than increasing the academic pressure.

Here is what the evidence and our own early conversations with schools point toward:

First, ditch the stopwatch at home entirely right now. The school is already administering the timed element. Adding another timer at home compounds the stress without improving performance.

Second, shift to confidence-building activities. Ask your child to teach you a times table. Pick one they already know well. The act of explaining something cements it, and it repositions them as capable rather than struggling.

Third, use games that feel genuinely fun. Not "educational games" that are thinly disguised worksheets, but games your child would actually choose to play. Multiplayer formats work especially well here because the social element shifts the focus away from individual performance and onto shared enjoyment. This is something we have built XTables Champions around specifically: the idea that children learn best when they are too busy having fun to notice they are learning.

As our founder Gal Darrash puts it, *"We built this for the kids who put their head on the table and cry. The ones who already believe they're the worst in the class. If we can get them laughing and playing and accidentally learning their sixes, that's the whole point."*

Language matters enormously. What you say in the car on the morning of the check, or at the dinner table the night before, will either raise or lower the stakes in your child's mind.

Avoid framing it as a test they need to pass. The MTC is not pass/fail in the traditional sense; it informs teacher planning. Your child does not "fail" the MTC. Saying something like "It's just a quick computer game at school this week, and your teacher wants to see how you're getting on" is far more accurate and far less alarming than "You need to get all the answers right quickly."

If your child has an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) or is on the SEND register, it is also worth checking with their teacher this week whether any access arrangements apply. Some children are entitled to additional time or other adjustments. Schools do not always proactively flag this to parents.

Here is the piece that I think gets lost in the MTC conversation: June 12th is not the end. It is actually the most important moment to get your child's relationship with maths moving in the right direction, because Year 5 builds directly on what is covered in the check.

Children who leave Year 4 convinced they are "not a maths person" carry that belief through secondary school and beyond. Children who leave Year 4 with some genuine fluency and a neutral or positive feeling about numbers have a completely different trajectory.

This is where low-pressure, game-based practice over the summer can genuinely shift things. Not intensive drilling. Just regular, short, enjoyable encounters with multiplication, in a context that does not feel like school.

At XTables Champions, we built our app specifically for children who have already decided maths is not for them. The multiplayer format means children are playing with or against others, which makes the social experience the draw rather than the maths itself. The games are ones children actually want to play. And the design deliberately avoids the aesthetic of a traditional maths test.

From the schools we have spoken to in our early work, the children who engage most readily are often the ones their teachers describe as "refusing" maths. The game wrapper changes the relationship entirely.

Get through check week with as little pressure at home as possible. Validate their feelings without catastrophising the check itself. Then, once it is over, use the summer to gently rebuild. Short sessions, games they choose, no timer, no score-watching. The goal is that by September, they feel a little more capable than they did in May.

If you are looking for a tool designed specifically for this purpose, one built for anxious, neurodivergent children who need engagement before they can access learning, XTables Champions is worth exploring. We are a small, founder-led team and we have built this because we genuinely believe the current approach leaves too many children behind.

If your child is struggling with maths anxiety right now, or you are a teacher or SENCO seeing this pattern in your class, I would love for you to get in touch or visit xtableschampions.com to find out how XTables Champions works. We are happy to talk through whether it is the right fit for your child or your school. No hard sell, just an honest conversation about what your child needs.