Short division

National Curriculum: expected secure by the end of Year 4.

What it is

Short division — the bus stop method — divides a number one digit at a time, carrying each leftover to the next digit. For 196 ÷ 6: sixes in 19 is 3 remainder 1; the 1 carries to make 16; sixes in 16 is 2 remainder 4. Answer: 32 remainder 4.

It leans almost entirely on times-table recall: every step asks "how many sixes in this?" plus a small subtraction. A child still counting up their tables has to do that inside every digit, and the method turns slow and error-prone.

When children learn it

Short division is taught from Year 4 (ages 8 to 9), once tables to 12 × 12 are expected, and is used through Years 5 and 6 with larger numbers. Long division — for dividing by 2-digit numbers — comes in Year 6.

What it looks like when it goes wrong

These patterns come up again and again in children's answers on this skill. Each one points at a specific missing idea, not carelessness.

• The remainder disappears. 196 ÷ 6 answered as just 32, or a word problem answered without asking what the remainder means. If 196 people travel in minibuses that seat 6, the answer 32 leaves four people behind; the question needs 33.
• The leftover is lost between digits. The remainder from one digit never joins the next: after "sixes in 19 is 3 remainder 1", the next step reads 6 instead of 16. One lost carry and every digit after it is wrong.
• A table fact one out. "Sixes in 19" answered as 4 — one multiple too high, overshooting 19 — or as 2, stopping a group early. One digit of the answer is out, and the carried remainder that follows is wrong too.

How to help at home

• Before practising division, check the matching table is quick. If 6 × 7 needs thinking time, 43 ÷ 6 will too — the table is the thing to practise first.
• After a word problem, ask what the remainder means here. Sometimes it rounds the answer up (minibuses needed), sometimes it is dropped (full boxes packed), sometimes it is the answer itself (how many left over).
• Check with multiplication: 32 remainder 4 means 32 × 6 + 4 should give back 196.
• If the written steps keep going wrong, do the same division with coins or place-value counters: share the tens, exchange the leftover into ones, share again. The written method is a record of that.