Time, Timetables and Calendars Mastery

By the end of this lesson your child can read a clock face, convert between 12-hour and 24-hour time, work out how long something lasted, and read a bus timetable or a calendar without guessing. Time turns up on almost every 11+ and GCSE Foundation paper, usually as a word problem rather than a question about clocks. A child who subtracts 0850 from 1120 the way they would subtract ordinary numbers gets 3 h 30 min instead of 2 h 30 min, and loses a mark on a question they understood.

Topics covered:

• Reading analogue clocks, and converting between 12-hour and 24-hour time, including the midday and midnight cases most children get wrong
• Units of time, seconds, minutes, hours, days and weeks, and why the base is 60 rather than 10
• Durations, counting on a number line to find how long something lasted, and working backwards from an end time
• Timetables, reading a cell, timing a journey, and choosing the latest service that still arrives in time
• Calendars, days in each month, weekday jumps in sevens, and the leap year rule including why 1900 was not one
• Mixed time problems, school schedules, cooking deadlines and door to door journeys that use every skill above

Your child works through the lesson on any screen. Every worked example is revealed one line at a time, so they watch the method build up, try the next question on paper, then click to check their own answer. Four explore tools and two games sit alongside the practice. There is a live clock whose hands they move while all three ways of writing the time update together, a number line that takes one counting on jump per click, a months poem that lights up the months it names, a leap year checker, a clock matching game and a timetable game against the clock.

How it's structured:

• Each of the 6 units opens with worked examples your child clicks through line by line, then practice questions colour-coded easy, medium and hard
• 96 questions in total, every answer hidden behind click to reveal, with a reveal-all option on each slide
• A final 20-question mixed challenge pulling from all 6 units, so your child has to work out which skill the question needs before they start

Counting on is the part that makes durations click. Time is not a base ten system, so subtracting one time from another in columns gives the wrong answer often enough to cost real marks. This lesson teaches the jump method instead. Your child counts on from the start time to the next whole hour, then counts the whole hours, then adds the minutes that are left. Every duration answer in the lesson draws that number line, so the method is on screen every single time rather than explained once and dropped.

Use this if:

• Your child is in Year 4 to Year 11 and still counts on their fingers to work out how long something took
• You're preparing for the 11+, where timetable and calendar questions are common and rarely taught properly at school
• Your child is doing GCSE Foundation and treats 1 h 40 min as 1.4 hours
• You want a resource your child can check their own work with, not one more thing on your to-do list

Built by an experienced maths teacher with over 3,000 hours of one-to-one tutoring experience and a Master's in Education.

Better value as a bundle. This lesson is one of 5 in the Coordinates, Measures & Time Bundle, all 5 for £19.99 instead of £29.95 bought separately.

Format: Interactive digital lesson, link sent by email straight after purchase.
Suitable for: Year 4 to Year 11, 11+, KS2, KS3, KS4, GCSE Foundation.

Who this is for

Built for students who want to practise independently, at their own pace, with clear examples and instant feedback rather than a static worksheet.