Telling the time to the nearest minute
Maths · Key Stage 2 · The School
Beyond five-minute steps
You already read a clock to the nearest five minutes. Now go further. Every one of the sixty tiny marks around the edge is one minute. The minute hand moves through them one at a time. Reading the exact minute means counting from the last five-minute mark. This is the same clock face you already know. It just asks you to look a little more closely at it.
Counting on from the mark
The minute hand sits just past the 2, which marks 10 minutes past. Count the small marks after the 2: one, two, three. That gives 13 minutes past. Always count from the nearest five-minute mark. It is faster than counting all sixty marks from the top. Practise this with a real clock whenever you get the chance. It quickly becomes automatic with a little regular practice.
Analogue and digital together
A clock reading 13 minutes past 4 is written 4:13 in digital time. Past the half hour works differently. A clock reading 20 minutes to 5 is 40 minutes past 4, so it is written 4:40. Digital time always counts forward from the hour, never backward from the next one.
Working out how long has passed
A film starts at 2:45 and ends at 3:20. Count from 2:45 to 3:00 first: that is 15 minutes. Then count from 3:00 to 3:20: that is 20 minutes more. Add the two parts together: 15 add 20 makes 35 minutes. Splitting a time gap at the hour makes the whole sum far easier to check. Try it with a different start and end time.