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Times tables in NSW: what each year learns, and how to practise

Parent guides. Facts checked on 16 October 2026 against the official pages listed at the foot.

Times tables still matter, and the NSW Mathematics K-10 Syllabus (2022) is clear about when: all the multiplication facts to 10 x 10, with their division facts, by the end of Year 4. Here is what each stage expects, the order that makes the facts easier, and how to practise at home without tears.

Try 10 free questions with your child, marked as soon as you finish: the Year 3 or Year 4 check.

Which year learns which facts?

The syllabus sets its content by stage, two school years at a time, and leaves the order within a stage to the school.

Kindergarten to Year 2
Counting in twos, threes, fives and tens, forwards and backwards, and finding the missing number in the pattern. Making equal groups and skip counting to find the total. Sharing a collection into equal groups, and noticing what is left over. No facts are memorised yet, but these counting patterns become the first tables.
Years 3 and 4
The Stage 2 outcome asks a child to represent and use "the structure of multiplicative relations to 10 x 10 to solve problems". The first part covers the multiples of 2, 4, 5 and 10 and their division facts, multiplying by one and zero, and doubling. The second part links the threes to the sixes and the fours to the eights by doubling, uses known facts to find unknown ones, and ends with recalling the fact families up to 10 x 10 and multiplying a one-digit number by a multiple of 10.
Years 5 and 6
The facts are assumed. The Stage 3 outcome moves to choosing strategies for multiplication and division: products and factors, prime numbers, multiplying 2-, 3- and 4-digit numbers by one digit and then by two digits, and division with remainders using "known multiplication fact families". A child without the facts in Year 5 does every long multiplication the hard way.

Which part lands in Year 3 and which in Year 4 is the school's call. Ask the teacher which facts the class is on this term, so home practice points at the same ones.

What does "know" mean?

Not reciting the sevens as a chant. The syllabus word is recall: a child who knows 7 x 8 answers 56 within a few seconds in any order, knows that 56 divided by 7 is 8, and can see the fact inside 70 x 8. Each fact is a family of four: 7 x 8 = 56, 8 x 7 = 56, 56 divided by 7 = 8 and 56 divided by 8 = 7. The syllabus asks for the division facts alongside the multiplication facts from the start, because a child who learns them together uses either when a problem needs it.

What order works?

The order the syllabus follows is also the easy one, because each table leans on one a child already has.

  1. Twos, tens and fives: the counting patterns from Years 1 and 2.
  2. Fours: double the twos. 4 x 7 is 14 doubled.
  3. Threes: the first table with no shortcut, so it takes a little longer.
  4. Sixes: double the threes. 6 x 7 is 21 doubled.
  5. Eights: double the fours. 8 x 7 is 28 doubled.
  6. Nines: ten of something, less one of it. 9 x 7 is 70 minus 7.
  7. Sevens: by now 7 x 2 to 7 x 6 and 7 x 8 to 7 x 10 are known from the other tables. The only new fact is 7 x 7.

Because 3 x 8 and 8 x 3 are the same fact, a child who has learnt the tables in this order has fewer new facts to learn each time, not more. That is the point of the syllabus asking for "known facts to find unknown multiples".

How do we practise at home?

  1. Five minutes a day beats half an hour on Sunday. Facts move into long-term memory through many short visits.
  2. One table at a time, mixed with ones already known, so most answers in a session are right.
  3. Say the whole family when a fact comes up: 6 x 4 is 24, so 24 divided by 6 is 4.
  4. Build it once with objects. Six rows of four pegs is an array, and turning it sideways shows why 4 x 6 is the same.
  5. Skip count on the stairs, in the car, while the kettle boils. The counting pattern is the table.
  6. Use the ten-by-ten grid on the back cover of this page. Cover a square, ask for it, then uncover it.
  7. Explain the strategy out loud: 8 x 6 is double 4 x 6. A child who can say why a fact is right can rebuild it when it slips.
  8. Once a table comes without counting, mix the questions and add a gentle timer: a minute of mixed facts shows which ones are fluent. Not before.
  9. Stop before frustration. A session that ends on a right answer is the one a child comes back to.

To see which facts are fluent, try the free times tables test: pick the tables, with or without a timer, and it shades a grid of every fact tried.

Does NAPLAN test times tables?

Not as a list, but the Year 3 and Year 5 numeracy tests allow no calculator, and many questions hide a multiplication or division fact inside a problem about money, measurement or sharing. A child who has to count up to 7 x 6 spends the time on the fact instead of the problem.

Questions parents ask

By when should my child know their times tables?

By the end of Year 4. The Stage 2 outcome of the NSW Mathematics K-10 Syllabus covers Years 3 and 4 and asks for the multiplication facts to 10 x 10 with their division facts. Years 5 and 6 build long multiplication and division on them.

Which times tables come first?

The twos, tens and fives, which children have skip counted since Year 1, then the fours as double the twos. The syllabus then links the threes to the sixes and the fours to the eights by doubling, and the sevens come last.

My child is in Year 5 and still does not know them. Is it too late?

No. Five minutes a day on one table at a time, with its division facts, usually closes the gap in a term. Tell the teacher, so the class work and the home practice point at the same facts.

Should I use a timer?

Not until a table is known. A timer on facts a child is still working out teaches guessing. Once the facts come without counting, a gentle one minute of mixed questions shows which facts are fluent.

How Learnest helps

Learnest's Stage 2 maths holds the multiplication facts to 10 x 10 and the division facts to 100 as skills of their own, beside the rest of the Years 3 and 4 syllabus. The first maths day is a check that finds where your child is, the app teaches a skill that is missing and brings it back in later reviews until it holds, and the nightly email names a skill that slipped, so you know the night it is the tables. Fifteen to twenty minutes a day covers maths, English and science, so the tables sit inside the rest of the syllabus rather than on their own. Every question is Learnest's own.

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Sources

Checked 16 October 2026. Every date, number and rule above comes from these pages. If one of them has changed since, it is right and this page is behind.

Learnest is not affiliated with ACARA, NESA, the NSW Department of Education or the Australian Maths Trust. This guide explains the published facts in Learnest's own words; the official pages above are the record.