Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether secondary legislation will be required to implement the Key Stage 2 Multiplication tables check assessment framework.

To help ensure that children can recall their times tables fluently by the time they leave primary school, a new national multiplication tables check will be introduced from the 2019/20 academic year onwards. This check will be delivered via a short, onscreen assessment and will be administered by schools to pupils at the end of year 4.

In order to implement the check, the Department is proposing to amend the Education (National Curriculum) (key stage 2 assessment arrangements) Order 2003. The Department will also consider making further consequential amendments to related statutory instruments before the check is first administered on a statutory basis in the summer of 2020.