Big Maths ‘Learn Its’
At Brough School we aim to help children become more numerate. As you may have heard in the news all
children need to know their times tables to 12 x 12 and have quick mental recall of number facts.
Quick recall of mental maths is key to many aspects of mathematics therefore we use ‘Big Maths Learn Its’
as a way of helping children achieve a firm foundation of the basic facts.
A ‘Learn It’ is a number fact that is learnt so well that it can be recalled instantly. It includes the entire 1
digit add 1 digit answers as well as the 1 digit multiplied by 1 digit answers.
The pupils should know all ‘Learn Its’ as well as they know their own name. When they recall these facts
there is no thinking time. When this is achieved it opens the door to a whole new world of numeracy e.g.
80 x 70 is easy to do if you know 8 x 7.
As the children pass through the school they will have certain number facts to learn. There are 72 facts in
all to learn, these are broken down into small chunks, and each term for each of the 5 years from
Reception to year 4 certain facts are given to the children to learn. These facts will be given as part of
home learning; you will therefore know what facts your child is learning so that you can help your child
learn these facts. Each week your child will be tested on these facts and each week their score should
improve as they learn more facts. Please ask your child how they have got on. In year 5 & 6 they will be
revising all 72 facts.
At the beginning of the autumn term pupils will be tested on the previous year’s ‘Learn Its’ to check that
they know these facts really well before going on to the new facts. (Please note some children may be
working on previous ‘learn its’ to secure their learning.)
Learn Its
Reception
Year 1
Year 2
Doubling 4 + 4 3 + 3 2 + 2 1 + 1
2+1 2+3
Autumn term
Adding to 10
1 + 9= 10 2 + 8 = 10 3 + 7 = 10 4 + 6 = 10 5 +5 = 10
Counting on in 5’s counting on in 10’s
Spring Term
Adding on 2
4 + 2 = 6 6 + 2 = 8 5 + 2 = 7 7 + 2 = 9 9 + 2 = 11
Adding on 3
4+3=76+3=95+3=8
Summer Term
Doubles
6 + 6 = 12 7 + 7 = 14 8 + 8 = 16 9 + 9 = 18
Counting on in 2’s
Autumn Term
4 + 9 = 13 4 + 8 = 12 4 + 7 = 11 3 + 8 = 11 3 + 9 = 12
Multiples of 10 ( 10 x multiplication table) – learning table facts in isolation/jumbled
up/division facts e.g 20 divide by 10 = 2
Spring Term
6 + 7 = 13 5 + 6 = 11 5 +4 = 9 8 + 7 = 15 8 + 9 = 17
Multiples of 5
Summer Term
6 + 8 = 14 5 + 8 = 14 5 + 7 = 12 5 + 9 = 14 6 + 9 = 15 7 + 9 + 16
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5 & 6
Multiples of 2
Autumn term
Multiples of 3 1)Say multiples of 3 1 -5, 2) say multiples of 3 1-10, 3)say table,
4)Jumbled Table facts, 5)fact family ( e.g , 3 x 4 = 12, 4 x 3 = 12 12 divide by 3 = 4 12
divided by 4 = 3
Spring term
Multiples of 4
Summer Term
Multiples of 9
Autumn Term
Multiples 6 ( 6 x table)
Spring Term
Multiples of 7
Summer Term
Multiples of 8
Consolidation of all of the above
How to help?
'Beat the teacher/ parent
Fact on board - who knows the answer- who is first
Repeat with switchers 3 + 4 = 7 switcher 4 + 3 = 7
Children copy some ‘Learn Its’ onto whiteboards/paper and read in different voices (changing operation
vocabulary)
Fast & Furious round - asking individuals e.g. Let's make this number 4 times bigger, I say 3 you say 12
Pick 1 fact to show Fact Family triangle- ask inverse questions e.g 3 + 4 = 7, 4 + 3 = 7 , 7 – 4 = 3, 7 – 3 = 4
How to help your child learn their tables:
• If you know how to double, then you can multiply by 2, 4, and 8 or by 20, 40 or80
• If you know your 3 times table, then you know your 6s. If you know your 4s you know your 8s
• If you can multiply by one, then you can multiply by 10
• If you can halve, then you can multiply by 5
• If you learn one fact, then you know a second e.g. 7 x 3, 3 x 7
• If you know 7 x 3, you know 70 x 3 or 700 x 3 or 700 x 30 or 700 x 300
• If you know 7 x 3 = 21, then you know that 21 ÷ 3 = 7 and that 21 ÷ 7 = 3 or that 210 ÷ 30 = 7 or that 210 ÷
3 = 70 etc. If this key skill is so important, what can we do as parents or carers to help our children?
1. Don’t panic. Firstly, there are not 100 tables facts to learn as half of them are repetition i.e. 6 x 5 would
have the same answer as 5 x 6. Take out the square numbers 3 x 3 , 4 x 4 etc and the list of times tables to
learn gets even shorter.
2. Try to spend an appropriate amount of time in the evenings with your child. It could be that this time is
split between a personal touch and using times tables games
3. Make maths part of your everyday life. You can do it when you’re setting the table. How many sitting at
the table? How many forks, spoons etc. When you’re cooking or preparing meals. If it’s a ready meal or if
there’s packaging,take a close look at the labelling and see if you can make up questions. For example,
200g for one person so how many grams for 3 people?
4. If you are in the car, try to turn numbers that you see in to simple maths problems, for example,
numbers from number plates
5. At the supermarket look for offers such as ‘buy one get one free’ or ‘3 for the price of 2’ or ‘buy one get
second half price’. Talk about the maths involved. Which is the best offer? Are there any ‘offers’ that are
not a good deal, for example, (as seen in a supermarket recently), marmalade is 73p per jar – buy 2 jars for
£1.50? A 200g bag of chocolate raisins costs 48p – buy 3 bags for £2.00?
6. Make maths as relevant and as appropriate to your child’s interests. For example, if your child is
interested in sport, take a closer look at the Olympic 100m record which is presently 9.69 seconds. What
number does the ‘6’ represent? It may be football league points or the number of goals a player has
scored. If he scored twice as many as last season, how many goals is that?
7. Switch the television and music off!
8. Make maths fun by playing board games or Sudoku or any maths puzzles
9. Get the children to talk to you about maths. What did you do at school today? Did you find anything
really hard? Can I help?
10. There must be rewards or some form of ‘carrot’ as motivation. Whether it’s the 50p challenge or
stickers or some form of treat. We all enjoy rewards or praise in some form.
Visit the publisher’s website:
http://www.andrelleducation.com/big-maths/