Teaching for mastery in primary maths

In this chapter, pupils use the language of time and tell the time using “o’clock” and “half past” throughout the day.

Pupils are introduced to the concept of time and use language such as “earlier”, “later”, “quicker” and “slower”. As they begin to sequence events in chronological order, especially in relation to their daily routines in the classroom, pupils develop the language used to include “before”, “after”, “next”, “first”, “today”, “tomorrow” and “yesterday”.

Through both planned and spontaneous learning opportunities over an extended period, pupils learn to tell time to the hour and half past the hour. Ideally, this is done at home, as well as in the classroom, as frequent practice and reinforcement is vital in supporting pupils as they get to grips with the concept.

Later, pupils start to recognise and use language relating to dates, including days of the week and months of the year.

In this chapter, pupils tell the time to five minutes, compare and sequence intervals of time and know the number of minutes in an hour and number of hours in a day.

Pupils apply the skill of counting in 5s to tell the time to the nearest five minutes and, in addition to the vocabulary learned in the previous chapter, use language such as “quarter past” and “quarter to”. They also know the number of minutes in an hour and the number of hours in a day. In later chapters, this understanding will help them to convert between units of time.

Additionally, pupils compare and sequence intervals of time and extend their existing vocabulary to include “longer”, “shorter”, “longest” or “shortest”.

Quantities of time should be represented in a variety of ways, in order to support pupils in their exploration and clarification of the different elements of this concept.

Pupils looking for challenge should be encouraged to formulate and solve problems involving time differences and sums.

In this chapter, pupils read time to the nearest minute and record time in terms of seconds, minutes and hours.

Pupils use and record times on both analogue and digital clocks. They learn to tell and write the time from analogue, 12- and 24-hour digital clocks, using vocabulary such as “o’clock”, “am”, “pm”, “morning”, “afternoon”, “noon” and “midnight”.

Building on work from the previous chapter, pupils also know the number of seconds in a minute and the number of days in each month, year and leap year. As before, this understanding will help them to convert between units of time in later chapters.

Given start and finish times of events or tasks, pupils calculate and compare their duration by applying their addition and subtraction skills.

In this chapter, pupils start to solve problems in which they are required to convert between units of time.

Knowledge of the number of days in a week, months in a year, seconds in a minute and minutes in an hour can now be applied in conversion-focused word problems. At this stage, pupils convert from the larger to the smaller unit (eg, from minutes to seconds), so that the quantity of units increases rather than decreases, thereby avoiding the complexities of rounding.

Pupils should move confidently between analogue and digital (12- and 24-hour) clocks, reading and writing the time from them.

In this chapter, pupils convert from smaller to larger units of time (eg, from minutes to hours).

Pupils use their knowledge of place value, multiplication and division to convert between standard units. They use all four operations in problems involving time, including conversions (eg, days to weeks, expressing the answer as weeks and days). At this stage, the numbers chosen should minimise the need for rounding.

In this chapter, pupils use their calculation skills and understanding of time to solve problems.

Problems may include other types of measurement and have multiple steps. Time provides an excellent context for the application of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.