Building up to six seconds, one second at a time
The clearest test of the approach came with the Multiplication Tables Check, standardized by the Department for Education (DfE) across UK schools. Year 4 children sit it in for this exam every June. The format stays the same each year: twenty-five questions drawn from the 2 to 12 times tables, six seconds each, typed on screen. When the assessment was first introduced, Simon’s school had the problem that most primary schools recognized: six seconds is quick, and dropping a nine-year-old straight into it is a reliable way to make them panic in this high-stakes exam.
And the numbers show that panic and stress: the baseline assessment at the start of the year put around only 5% of the class at the target the school had set. So rather than starting at six seconds, Simon’s students worked towards this goal. The children began on multiple-choice multiplication questions with a comfortable timer, and then the timer came down. And came down again. The reduction is visible to the class (they can see the number changing) but it arrives in increments small enough that no single step feels like a jump. Simon suggests, “The children can see that time decreasing, but because it happens gradually, six seconds doesn’t suddenly feel quite so daunting.”
Once the speed was normal, a new variable came in. Simon changed the question format instead of the clock. The children stopped choosing the right answer from four options and started typing on their own with type answer, which is what the real check asks of them. Picking 56 out of a line-up is an easier job than producing it from memory. Then the timer started coming down again.
None of this meant rebuilding anything. He duplicates the kahoot, adjusts the setting he wants to move, and plays it again the following week.
By June, the format held no surprises, the pace was ordinary, and the class had spent months on multiplication recall in a way they had enjoyed rather than endured. Around 90% of his children were reaching the target.
Playing the same ten questions twice
At the end of a unit, Simon plays the first game again. Same kahoot, same ten questions, nothing changed.
Running the identical questions is what makes the comparison mean anything. Progress on a different set of questions is a guess; progress on the same set is a measurement, and it shows him what has landed and what still needs revisiting before the class moves on. The comparison holds because his children sign in the same way each time, so the two reports line up child by child rather than as two separate class averages.
The part he values most is the bit that outlasts his own year with them.
“We can see the progress, identify anything that still needs revisiting and keep that information for the next teacher too. That, for me, is where Kahoot! becomes much more than a quiz.”
Whoever teaches those children next September starts with something better than a hunch about where they are.
Advice for other teachers
Simon’s advice is practical. He decides what he wants to find out from the children before he builds anything, rather than playing because a game is engaging. He changes one thing at a time (the timer or the question type, not both in the same week) so that confidence has a chance to keep pace with difficulty. And where he can, he hands the building over to the class, showing them the question types and asking how they would use them.
Letting children make their own kahoots, he reckons, teaches more than most teachers expect it to.
For Simon, none of this was about finding a better revision activity. It was realizing the games had been producing usable information all along, and that he had been throwing nearly all of it away. “For me, the data behind Kahoot! is just as useful as the game itself.”
