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Let's look at telling the time to the nearest minute, using an analogue clock.

Remember, an analogue clock shows the numbers 1-12 in a circle and has two 'hands' .

The long minute hand measures minutes and the short hour hand measures hours.

When the time is after the hour (up to 30 minutes) we say past. When it's before the hour (but after 30 minutes past) we say to.

We often use descriptions such as 'quarter past' and 'half past' to tell the time, but it's also good to be able to say exactly how many minutes past the hour or how many minutes to the hour it is.

The space between each number on a clock contains five minutes. You can say a time to the nearest minute by checking exactly where the minute hand is.

Let's look at some examples.

Example 1

What time is it?

It is 4 minutes past 5.

Top tip

If the minute hand on a clock is pointing to 'half past', then we could say it is either 30 minutes past the hour, or 30 minutes to the hour!

Let's look at the clocks below that have either their minute or hour hand missing. Can we still tell the time to the nearest minute?

This clock is missing its hour hand. What might the time be?

We can see the minute hand is showing 18 minutes to the hour.

The time could be 18 minutes to any hour though - we can't say for sure.

This clock is missing its minute hand. What might the time be?

We can see that the hour hand has gone past the 9 but has not yet reached the 10.

The hour hand is closer to the 9 so that means the time has not yet passed half past 9.

We can't say exactly, but the time must be around quarter past 9.

This clock is also missing its minute hand. What might the time be?

We can see that the hour hand has gone past the 1 but has not quite yet reached the 2.

The hour hand is closer to the 2 though so that means the time must be later than half past 1.

We can't say exactly, but the time must be around quarter to 2.

What time is it now?

Practise reading the time during the day on an analogue clock.

Notice when the minute hand is somewhere between one of the numbers 1-12 and work out how many minutes past or minutes to the hour it is.

What time is it now? How many minutes is it until the next hour?

Have a go at this quiz to test your knowledge!