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About Ray Maher

Ray has dedicated himself to developing courses and resources that are innovative, enjoyable and will help to raise standards in mathematics.

Ray believes in teaching children key skills. Skills for real life, such as children knowing their ‘times tables’ off by heart and having only one efficient method for the four number operations. Every child matters.

Ray has 25 years' experience teaching in the classroom, then ultimately becoming a Head teacher. He became Senior Maths Consultant and Assistant Primary Strategy Manager in a Yorkshire LEA where he provided teacher training and in-school consultancy.

Hong Kong, Dubai, Toulouse and Jakarta are just some of the places Ray has performed the role of Maths Facilitator and has been involved in the design of national test materials in the U.K.

Since becoming an independent maths consultant, Ray has worked alongside teachers, Head teachers and LEAs both nationally and internationally to raise standards in mathematics. At the same time he has been exploring and investigating the creative side of mathematics.

If children in your school are underachieving in mathematics and you are looking for an insight into a way forward which is innovative, enjoyable and will help to raise standards in mathematics, then the resources and training offered by Ray Maher are for you.

Ray's Philosophy on Maths

"When I was at primary school in Manchester in the 1960s everyone chanted their times tables in class. We then had to recite them individually. My teacher would fire questions around the class so you had to stay alert in case it was your turn next. Even though I was not a mathematics academic at school, as a result of this ‘formal’ teaching strategy, I grew up knowing my times tables off by heart and I have used this ‘key skill’ continually throughout my life. Learning times tables by rote seemed to become unfashionable in schools in the 1980s and 90s yet when I became a teacher, the children were amazed at how quickly I could answer any times table up to 10 x 10 or beyond. In my year 6 class I used to have a ‘Friday 50p challenge’ which consisted of a times table question being read out by a child from a box of assorted questions. If any of the children answered first, I gave them the 50p, however if I answered first, (which was always the case), I would kiss the 50p piece, put it back in my pocket and say, ‘Try again next week!’ It was not the money that was the motivation, it was the fact that they could say ‘I beat Mr Maher’.

I would suggest that knowing your times tables, and corresponding division facts, is a skill for life. Once you know them all by heart you can use this knowledge to find out other facts. For example:

• If you know how to double, then you can multiply by 2, 4, and 8 or by 20, 40 or 80
• If you know your 3 times table, then you could know your 6s. If you know your 4s, you could 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.

The Primary Strategy suggests that all children should know their times tables up to 10 x 10 by the end of year 4, (age 8 to 9 year olds), yet there are many year 6 children preparing for the next phase of their education who are still not secure in their times tables or ‘know by heart facts’.

I firmly believe that knowing times tables up to 10 x 10 or, as it was in my day up to 12 x 12, by heart is a key skill for life. I believe it is an integral part of the foundation for learning and should be given the highest priority. Get the basics right and the rest will follow. Without the basic skills accessing the rest of the mathematics curriculum becomes much harder. We are not here simply ‘making up the numbers’! Every child matters."