Ask any primary teacher whether their class needs more maths practice and you'll get a yes before you've finished the question. Ask them where the time for it is supposed to come from and you'll get a longer answer.

We talk to a lot of teachers at Trivela, and the same questions come up again and again. Which year group should get the extra practice? Which topics are hardest to practise well? Should it be homework, morning work, form time, wet play? When should Year 6 start getting ready for SATs? And are the tools we're already paying for actually working?

I've pulled together what the evidence says on each of these, plus what we've learned from children playing our own game. I co-founded Trivela, so I'll be upfront about that when we get to it.

Where things stand

The national picture is better than it was, but not by much. In 2026, 75% of Year 6 pupils met the expected standard in maths, up from 74% in 2025 (DfE, provisional). That still leaves one in four children starting secondary school behind.

The gap for disadvantaged pupils is the bigger worry. Maths has the widest disadvantage gap of any KS2 subject, at 20 percentage points.

Times tables are going in the right direction. The average score in the Year 4 multiplication tables check rose to 21.0 out of 25 in 2025, and 37% of pupils got full marks, up from 27% in 2022 (DfE). Disadvantaged pupils were 14 percentage points less likely to get full marks.

Which year groups need the most practice?

Most schools put their effort into Year 6, and you can see why. That's where the tests are. Ofsted's 2023 maths subject report found interventions were most common in Year 6 and, to a lesser extent, Year 2, with resources following them (Ofsted).

The trouble is that many of the gaps showing up in Year 6 started years earlier. Ofsted found the gaps were mainly in addition facts in the younger year groups, and that they "often stayed hidden" because children could keep up for a while with extra support and slow methods. Its advice to schools was to put resources into the younger year groups so the gaps don't build up in the first place.

So the honest answer is that the year group that needs the most practice is probably not the one getting it. A Year 2 child who still counts on their fingers for 7 + 8 is going to find long multiplication in Year 5 much harder than it needs to be.

Which areas are hardest to practise?

Some things are easy to practise and easy to check: number bonds, times tables, doubling and halving. Others are much harder to get right in a short session.

Fractions. Ofsted's research review singles out fractions, alongside whole numbers, as the knowledge children most need to be proficient in by the end of primary, because so much of what comes later depends on them (Ofsted, 2021). They're also hard to drill, because a child needs to understand what they're doing, not just recall an answer.

Word problems. According to the same review, the first barrier with word problems is language. A child might be perfectly able to do the calculation and still not work out which one the question is asking for.

The middle of the times tables grid. We looked at 800,000 times tables answers from children playing Trivela FC. The hardest single question was 6 × 9, which children got wrong nearly one time in four. Most wrong answers weren't random, though. Children answered 56 or 63 to 6 × 9 because they know those numbers but mix up which question they belong to. Going through the 7 times table in order doesn't fix that. Mixing the similar-looking facts together does.

Underneath all of this is fluency. When number facts aren't automatic, children "struggle with calculations due to their working memory being overloaded," as Ofsted puts it. The reasoning paper is hard enough without also working out 6 × 7 on your fingers.

Homework, form time or wet play?

All three, if you can make them work. But each has its catch.

Homework is the obvious one. Teacher Tapp found that 54% of KS2 teachers would choose times tables as homework, and 44% of primary homework tasks take 15 minutes or less (Teacher Tapp, 2024). The EEF puts the average impact of homework at about three months' extra progress in primary, and says it works best when it's short, has a clear purpose and is linked to what's happening in class (EEF).

The catch is that homework depends on home. Children without a quiet space, a device or an adult nudging them tend not to do it, and those are often the children who most need the practice. Teacher Tapp also found that teachers in disadvantaged areas were more likely to say they don't set homework at all.

Morning work, registration and form time. Ofsted found many schools using short routines like "fluent in 5" starters, and extra afternoon or registration sessions for mental arithmetic. These work because every child does them, whatever's happening at home. Ofsted's one warning is that if you need a lot of these extra sessions, it might say something about how well the basics are being taught earlier on.

Wet play, golden time and the last ten minutes before home time. These are the bits of the day nobody plans for, and they add up. They only work for practice if children want to do it, though. Nobody's going to choose a worksheet over the Lego box.

In practice, the schools we work with tend to do a bit of everything. They use a short daily slot in school so that every child gets practice, and the same game at home for the children who'll play it.

When to start practising for SATs

Earlier than you think, and not with past papers.

The KS2 maths tests are in May of Year 6, and the multiplication tables check is in June of Year 4. If a child's number facts aren't secure by the autumn of Year 6, there isn't much time left to fix them while also teaching the Year 6 curriculum.

Ofsted noticed that some Year 6 homework used test-style questions, which could confuse pupils who were working below expectations. Its recommendation is to aim for children being properly ready for Year 7, not just getting through the tests.

Our suggestion would be to start regular, low-stakes fact practice in Year 3, keep it going after the times tables check in Year 4, and widen it out to fractions and other operations through Years 5 and 6. Then by the spring of Year 6, revision can be about reasoning and exam technique rather than catching up on number facts.

What tools are schools using, and how well do they work?

Most primary schools already pay for at least one maths practice tool. The ones that come up most often are:

  • Times Tables Rock Stars. It's the best known, and the company says it's used in more than 15,000 schools. It's very good at what it does, which is times tables and related division facts. It doesn't cover the wider curriculum, and teachers often tell us the novelty wears off for some children after a while.
  • Numbots. This is from the same company and does a similar job for addition and subtraction in the younger years.
  • DoodleMaths. It covers the whole curriculum with short daily sessions. It's good for breadth, but it feels more like work than play to some children.
  • Hit the Button and other free games. They're great for quick-fire practice on the whiteboard, but children's progress isn't tracked.

None of these is a bad choice. Teachers do keep raising the same two problems, though. The children who most need the practice are often the ones who won't open the app. And the data teachers get back doesn't always tell them where the gaps are, only how much time a child spent.

Why we built Trivela the way we did

This is the bit where I talk about our game, so feel free to skip it. I'd only say we built Trivela around exactly the problems above.

Children want to play it. Trivela is a game first. Children answer maths questions to train and progress, then play matches and races as a reward. It isn't a quiz with a football picture stuck on it.

There's a game for most children. Not every child loves football, so there's a football career, Pet Clash, car racing and more to choose from. A child who'd never open a football game might happily spend wet play on the pets.

They love the progression. Children level up, unlock things and can see themselves getting better, which is what keeps them coming back after the first week.

The questions adapt, but they can still play with friends. Each child gets questions at their own level, from number bonds to fractions. But they're still in the same game as their friends, so a child who's behind isn't stuck on an obviously "easier" app while everyone else does something different.

Teachers can see what's going on. The teacher dashboard shows how many questions each child is answering and where the learning gaps are, not just how long they've been logged in. If half the class keeps mixing up 7 × 8 and 6 × 9, you'll see it.

Trivela is now used by over 20 schools, including a leading academy, and it covers everything from Reception to foundation GCSE.

If any of the problems above sound familiar, have a look at Trivela or get in touch at hello@trivelagame.com. I'd love to hear how practice works in your school, whether or not you end up using us.