NAHT conducted a survey of members who had taken part in the pilot to understand their experiences of implementing the check in their school - read our report on the survey, Multiple Concerns: NAHT members' response to the multiplications tables check pilot. 

NAHT has not supported the introduction of the multiplications tables check (MTC) to the whole cohort of Year 4 pupils, arguing that this test is unnecessary and won't tell schools anything that they don't already know about their children. 

Our survey data provides evidence to support this position, finding that: 

• 94% of respondents said the test did not tell them anything that they didn't already know about their Year 4 children's recall of multiplication tables;
• 85% of respondents reported that administering the MTC increased or significantly increased workload;
• only 5% of respondents believed that this increase in workload was beneficial for children's learning. 

NAHT has written to the secretary of state for education, expressing our lack of support for the full implementation of the test for all Year 4 pupils this year. We have also met with DfE and STA officials to share our findings and press for the test to be scrapped.

Read the full report Multiple Concerns: NAHT members' response to the multiplications tables check pilot.

Read our press release on the Multiple Concerns report.

First published 06 September 2019