The idea in brief. A clock time needs an hour, minutes and the correct part of the day. Check morning or afternoon before adding 12 hours. Midnight is 00 00 and noon is 12 00. In the lesson. You know how seconds, minutes and hours measure duration. We will read the twelve-hour and twenty-four-hour clocks. Check the part of the day as well as the hands.
Lesson video, with the working
Reading the 12-hour and 24-hour clocks
6 min 08 s
The film teaches 3 questions in turn. Each question shows first; its working is written as the film explains it.
This page teaches reading clock faces and changing between the 12-hour clock, with a.m. and p.m., and the 24-hour clock.
What your child learns here
This page teaches reading clock faces and changing between the 12-hour clock, with a.m. and p.m., and the 24-hour clock. It covers the P3 outcome on the 24-hour clock, building on reading the time to the minute.
Read the minute hand to the exact minute using the small marks, not only the numbers.
Read the hour hand correctly when it sits between two numbers.
Use a.m. for times from midnight to noon, and p.m. for times from noon to midnight.
Write 24-hour times with four digits and a space, such as 07 05 and 19 40.
Change between the two clocks: add 12 to the hour from 1 p.m. to 11 p.m., and write the hour after midnight as 00.
Does the answer make sense?
A 24-hour time with an hour from 13 to 23 is afternoon or evening, and one from 00 to 11 is after midnight or morning, so the hour must match the part of the day given. On a clock your child draws, the hour hand sits past its number whenever the minutes are not zero.
How to practise these questions
The Basic questions practise changing between 12-hour times with am or pm and 24-hour times. The Intermediate questions add afternoon and late evening times, and times just after midnight, where the hours change most. When a 24-hour clock question is stuck, play its solution film and come back to it later from Revision.
Questions parents ask
Is the 24-hour clock in the Primary 3 syllabus? Yes. The 24-hour clock is listed under Time in the Primary 3 MOE syllabus, together with measuring time in seconds and finding starting time, finishing time and duration.
How do you write 24-hour time without a colon? The lessons here write it as four digits with a space between the hour and the minutes, such as 08 15 or 21 40, with no a.m. or p.m. If your child's school worksheets show a different layout, follow those.
What time is 00 00 on the 24-hour clock? 00 00 is midnight, the start of a new day, and noon is 12 00. Times just after midnight, such as 12:10 a.m., are written as 00 10.
