Bishopsteignton Primary School

KIRFs - Key Instant Recall Facts 

What are KIRFS?

To develop your child’s fluency and mental maths skills, we are introducing KIRFs throughout school. KIRFS are a way of helping your child to learn by heart, key facts and information which they need to have instant recall of. 

KIRFs are designed to support the development of mental maths skills that underpin much of the maths work in our school. They are particularly useful when calculating, adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing.Instant recall of facts helps enormously with mental agility in maths lessons. When children move onto written calculations, knowing these key facts is very beneficial. For your child to become more efficient in recalling them easily, they need to be practised frequently and for short periods of time.

How can we access and practise KIRFs at home?

Each half term, children will focus on a Key Instant Recall Fact (KIRF) to practise and learn at home for the half term. These are accessible below and a copy will be sent home at the start of each half term. The KIRFs information pages include practical ideas to assist your child in grasping the key facts and contain helpful suggestions of ways in which you could make this learning interesting and relevant.  Learning KIRFs shouldn’t be time-consuming. In fact, KIRFs can be practised anywhere: in the car, walking to school, at the dinner table. The most important thing is facilitating regular practice. Little and often will support your child in retaining these facts for the long term!

We strongly encourage you to engage with your children in the learning of their KIRFs and find fun and practical ways to do this. 

How are KIRFs developed in school? 

Throughout the half term, the KIRFs will also be practised in school. These will be in short bursts during different times in the school week. Over their time at primary school, we believe that - if the KIRFs are developed fully - children will be more confident with number work, understand its relevance, and be able to access the curriculum much more easily. They will be able to apply what they have learnt to a wide range of problems that confront us regularly.

Previous Half Term Focus sheets: 

Below are the previous KIRFs for each half term. These are available if you wish to revisit certain KIRFs with your child.