Time - 24-hour clock - Planning

In a Year 3 summer term lesson, students are introduced to the concept of the 24-hour clock, an essential skill for telling time accurately throughout the day. The lesson begins with a 'Just a minute' vocabulary game, where children are challenged to define key time-related words within a minute, such as 'am', 'pm', and 'midnight'. The class then explores the differences between 12-hour and 24-hour clock times, using examples like 5:15 and 17:15 to highlight the conversion process. This helps students to understand that while the 12-hour clock cycles twice from 1 to 12, the 24-hour clock runs continuously from 00:00 to 23:59. To reinforce this learning, a visual display of both 12-hour and 24-hour clocks is created for the classroom, which serves as a reference for the children's activities.

During the independent learning phase, students engage in a practical task where they document their day using post-it notes or cards and label the events with times in both 12-hour and 24-hour formats. This is followed by matching activities and reasoning questions, where students must justify their answers and use 'stem sentences' to articulate their thought process. By the end of the lesson, the aim is for students to be able to match times to both analogue and digital clocks, with varying degrees of complexity depending on their level of understanding. For instance, some may work with o'clock and half-past times, while others may tackle more intricate five-minute intervals or even determine the correct time to a greater depth. The lesson concludes with a reflection on what they've learned, focusing on the skills used, any challenges faced, and a 'pinkie promise' to remember key aspects of the day's learning.