A new survey by YouGov has revealed that over half (52%) of parents and guardians of school-aged children don’t know all of their times tables. Furthermore, the research, conducted on behalf of educational app Edplus, found that:The easiest times table to recall perfectly was the two times table (76% got it right) and the hardest was the eight times table with only 59 per cent being able to recall it perfectly.The age group who knew their times tables the best was the group aged 55 and over, with 60 per cent of respondents being able to recall all of their times tables perfectly.The age group who knew their times tables the least well were those aged between 25 and 34.
Only 38 per cent said they were able to recall their times tables perfectly. Oxford University mathematician, and co-founder of Edplus, Professor Francis Brown commented on the results saying: “Parental assistance at home can be a really important factor in helping children improve their numeracy, particularly in an area such as multiplication. The results from this survey show that many parents may lack confidence and knowledge to help their children. We know that children with maths-anxious parents are more likely to struggle with the subject themselves. “Edplus has created a new educational app that parents can now download to make out-of-school learning easier and has made the times tables element of it free. It uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to ask questions and help the child in a way an ‘all knowing’ parent would. Every answer each child gives is stored and the software intelligently adapts its approach for each child to optimise their progress.