Is there a link between questions answered on Studyzone and mental maths scores?

I love statistics. I'm always poring over gap analysis spreadsheets, average marks and percentage increases. Recently I was struck by the massive improvement that a boy in year 6 had made in his mental maths scores; a key area in the forthcoming Key Stage 2 SATs tests. I decided to dig a little deeper to see what I could find.

It was immediately apparent that he had really got stuck in to Studyzone games. He'd gone from answering a handful of questions each week, to hundreds. Could this have played a part? Well, yes, massively. Knowing his teacher, I know quality first teaching has had a huge impact, but this has certainly been consolidated by Studyzone activities.

I decided to plot a graph - this is what I like to do if I think there's a link. Here's what I plotted:

• Mental Maths score out of 20 (blue bars)
• Questions answered each week on Studyzone (green line)

By adding the trend lines I was immediately struck at how clear the correlation was. Granted it's a small sample, but it does suggest that the more active students are on Studyzone, the more they can improve and develop their mental maths skills.

With just over 2 weeks to go until the Key Stage 2 SATs is it too late? I would argue no. Get your students incentivised to logon and play as many mental mental maths games as possible - it really can make a difference.

And where should they start? Well I thought I'd take a look at how many questions the boy in year 6 had answered on different games. These are listed below. I'd say he's made pretty wise choices!

Times Tables activities	38,271 questions	Open Activities
Number bond activities	2,260 questions	Open Activities
Doubling and Halving activities	1,350 questions	Open Doubling Activities Open Halving Activities
Multiply and Dividing by 10 and 100 activities	692 questions	Open Activities