Hit the Button Maths for Teachers
A free, no-login classroom starter mapped to what pupils are actually working on year by year — from early number bonds to Multiplication Tables Check preparation.
Where this fits in the year
Mental maths fluency is built across the whole of primary school, not crammed into one term. The table below is a general guide to how the topics on this site typically line up with year groups in England — use it to pick the right mode for a class, or to differentiate within one by adjusting difficulty rather than topic.
Swipe sideways to see the full table on a small screen.
| Year group | Usual focus | Matching mode here |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | Number bonds within 10, early addition/subtraction | Number Bonds to 10 |
| Year 2 | 2, 5 and 10 times tables; bonds to 20 | Times Tables (2/5/10 first), Bonds to 20 |
| Year 3 | 3, 4 and 8 times tables; related division facts | Times Tables, Division |
| Year 4 | All tables to 12×12; Multiplication Tables Check in June | MTC Practice |
| Year 5 | Square numbers; more complex multiplication and division | Square Numbers, Division |
| Year 6 | Consolidating fluency for SATs and secondary readiness | Mixed Maths |
Lesson starter ideas
- Two-minute warm-up: 30-second round on a single topic before the main lesson — enough to re-activate recall without eating into teaching time.
- Transition activity: a round while pupils move between carpet and tables, or while books are handed out.
- Differentiated groups: set the same topic across a table but let groups choose Easy, Medium or Hard, so everyone is challenged at their own level without a visibly different task.
- MTC run-up: from the spring term, a weekly round on the MTC practice mode gets pupils used to the 6-second pace well before the actual check in June.
Using it in the classroom
The game runs in any modern browser on a shared classroom display, individual computers, or tablets — there's no account, no install and no data collected on pupils. Best scores are stored only in the browser being used, so they reset on shared or cleared-cache devices, which is usually preferable for shared school equipment.
A note on the Multiplication Tables Check
The MTC is statutory for Year 4 pupils in state-funded schools in England, taken during a set window in June, and checks recall of tables up to 12×12 with 6 seconds per question. There's no pass mark and results don't appear in performance tables — it exists to flag pupils who'd benefit from more fluency support before Year 5. Our dedicated practice mode mirrors the real format.
Year-group detail, beyond the summary table
Year 1 — number bonds and early fluency
The groundwork year. Pupils build bonds within 10 first, then 20, alongside counting in 2s, 5s and 10s — the counting patterns that later become the 2×, 5× and 10× times tables. There's no expectation of multiplication recall yet; the priority is that addition and subtraction bonds become secure and, ideally, bidirectional (see the Number Bonds page for why that matters).
Year 2 — first times tables
2×, 5× and 10× are formally introduced, alongside related division facts (the inverse relationship — if a child knows 2×5=10, they should also be able to answer 10÷2 and 10÷5). Bonds extend to 20. This is also typically when the "counting on" strategy for addition starts giving way to genuine recall for the smaller facts.
Year 3 — expanding the table set
3×, 4× and 8× are added. 4× and 8× are usually taught explicitly as "double the 2×" and "double the 4×" respectively, rather than as unrelated new facts — worth reinforcing at home with the same language so it doesn't feel like two different methods.
Year 4 — full fluency and the MTC
By the end of Year 4, the National Curriculum expects pupils to have memorised all tables up to 12×12 with genuine fluency, not just "can work it out." The Multiplication Tables Check in June formally assesses exactly this. 6×, 7×, 9× and 12× are usually the last to become fully automatic, since they have the least obvious patterns (see the Times Tables page for a table-by-table breakdown of what pattern, if any, each one has).
Year 5 — square numbers and applied fluency
Square numbers are introduced, building directly on times-tables fluency (7² is just 7×7 recalled instantly rather than a new fact). Multiplication and division get more complex — multi-digit multiplication, division with remainders — all of which lean hard on Year 4's times-tables fluency being genuinely solid rather than shaky.
Year 6 — consolidation
Less new content, more applying everything fluently under exam conditions (SATs) and increasingly complex multi-step problems. Gaps in times-tables recall that weren't fully closed in Year 4 tend to show up here as slow working rather than wrong answers — worth flagging to parents specifically as a fluency issue, not a "doesn't understand multiplication" issue, since the fix is different.
A term-by-term run-up to the MTC (for Year 4 classes)
Swipe sideways to see the full table on a small screen.
| Term | Focus |
|---|---|
| Autumn | Consolidate 2×, 3×, 4×, 5×, 8×, 10× (the tables with clear patterns) so cognitive effort is freed up for the harder ones later. |
| Spring | Concentrated work on 6×, 7×, 9×, 11×, 12× — the tables with the least obvious shortcuts. Short, frequent sessions rather than long blocks. |
| Early summer | Switch practice format to match the real check: 6 seconds per question, no working-out time. Our MTC practice mode is built for exactly this stage. |
| Check week | Light, confidence-building practice only — this isn't the week to introduce new content or add pressure. |
Assessment beyond the MTC
Times-tables fluency is easy to spot-check informally without a formal test: a 30-second round on this site, done as a lesson starter twice a week, gives a rough sense of which pupils are still counting rather than recalling — usually visible as much slower response times on specific facts rather than wrong answers outright. That's a more useful early-warning signal than waiting for the June check to find out.