...to expect everyone to be able to tell the time on an analogue clock?

[TamaraDeLempicky]

Over the weekend, DS's friend (13) told me that he can't tell the time by looking at an analogue clock. I was shocked! He said he doesn't need to because he has a digital clock on his phone.

I have various analogue clocks around the house and at work which I use all the time. Do you think everyone should have the ability to read an analogue clock?

I don’t know if it’s age related

I’ve got a friend in her 50s who can’t tell time from an analogue clock

She grew up with them but just can’t compute what they say.

YANBU. Unless someone has severe learning difficulties, it is an expected skill for even young people brought up in a digital world.

I should say, I’ve known my friend 25 years and we weren’t surrounded by digital everything then.

I read them differently too. On a digital clock it's always the number of minutes past the hour, so if I'm looking at it quickly I process it as 5ish or about 5.30pm whereas on an analogue clock I'll think "blimey it's nearly 6 actually"

It is on the NC at primary but the best way to learn to tell the time isn't by having one or two specific lessons each year, but by building it into every day life.

We try to do this at school but we do find that parents don't do it any more at home, and many don't have analogue clocks at home. I know when dd was small we deliberately went out and bought an analogue clock for the house as we didn't have one and I realised she was finding time a hard part of her maths to grasp.

Lots of teens finds analogue clocks hard to read and they can't always do it really quickly. In exam halls etc they are supposed to have both analogue and digital clocks on display.

At school (infants) we have changed the way we teach time, including the 'every day use' type of approach. We start with only looking at 'minutes past' and don't introduce 'to' until later, so we'd say it is 40 minutes past rather than 20 to. Simple approaches like that has been shown to make it a little easier to understand, especially now analogue clocks aren't the norm.

It surprises me to read that many cannot tell the time with a normal clock or watch but I guess it's not that essential.

I like proper clocks and watches. I have 6 ordinary clocks in my house and 1 digital one. My bedside alarm/sad lamp is digital.

I have clocks in every room including the bathroom. Two in the living room. I like to know what the time is wherever I am and I really like to hear the ticking of a clock

Reading and understanding time using analogue and digital clocks is part of the national curriculum and is taught from year 3 .
This does not mean that children retain the information, this is especially true if they don’t have to read the time outside of a school lesson.
One boy in year 4 told me that their house had no analogue clocks at all , whilst another said they didn’t need clocks in his house as they just ask Alexa what the time is.
Like any other skill , it needs to be used to be retained.
( and used with purpose , not just telling the time, but the passing of time, in timetables etc ) There is only so much teachers can do , parents have to be part of it too.

Sorry - time is taught in KS1 too - mistyped!

I was having my hair cut at the local college last week and the 16/17 year old cutting my hair couldn't tell the time. The tutor tried explaining it to her, it still took her 3 attempts.

Being fought in primary school us fine, but if you've pretty much not had to do it since then then it's going to be a struggle. We don't have an analogue clock in our house, only digital ones, I've been thinking of getting one since then.

Both of my DC have dyslexia and struggle with an analogue clock. It’s quite common for those with dyslexia to struggle with this. We have analogue clocks in all rooms, they have analogue watches available to them and we have tried many ways to teach them but they still struggle. We have found ways round this To ensure they leave for school on time etc whilst we continue to try to find ways to help them learn.

DS started off with a normal analogue clock then upgraded to one like this .

We also have one with Roman numerals.

Telling the time was something he got very early on, he could tell the hours before he started school, and I think was pretty proficient by Y1. I was a parent helper and was quite surprised by how many children were still struggling in the later years of KS2, but as many have said if you don't practise some skills you don't remember them.

He is currently practising for a walking expedition where the kids have to hike without adult supervision. They are allowed to carry one mobile phone but only for emergency purposes only so cannot be used for telling the time. The route has to be mapped out and the estimated time of arrivals at check points have to be calculated so being able to tell the time and calculating the amount of time between check points is important.

Anybody NT over the age of 10 should be able to learn this in 5 minutes flat. It's hardly rocket science.

DD age 9 has probably had literally hours of one-to-one instruction on using an analog clock. This morning she asked me the time. I told her to look at the analog clock on the wall in front of her. She asked Alexa to tell her the time.

Autistic ds age 16 cant and never will. He is high functioning.

I taught my oldest when he was four, mostly in the hopes he might stop waking me up before 7am. It worked! Very selfish reason for teaching him to read an analogue clock :D Although to be fair I did have to put away my favourite analogue clock to do so because it runs backwards "Seilf Emit". I miss that clock.. it caused SO many friends to double take!

Probably will start teaching my smallest soon too, she turns four in October. I do wonder though if they would learn at all if I didn't teach them to read the clock. I'm not actually sure if it's part of school learning in Norway.

I'm surprised when anyone under 20 years can tell the time on an analogue clock

Not really. We only have analogue clocks in the house. DD's have them on theirs walls, we have one in the kitchen. We all have only analogue watches, they are just so much prettier, and some of them are antiques!

I haven't seen an analogue clock for a long time! I know they learn it in primary but if they don't have constant reinforcement it's easy to forget.
It's outdated now

We have them at work

Well, it's expected by the end of Y2, to five minute intervals?

I'm 23 and never been able to tell the time on an analogue clock due to learning difficulties. I was given a digital clock in exams or I had someone I could ask for the time.

I am surprised some posters say they haven't seen an analogue clock in some time.

Quite a few shops have clocks and all the ones I have seen are analogue. The clock in my library is also analogue and at the train station, bus station etc

I couldn't tell the tine until I was about 14. (over twenty yesrs ago) I don't remember anyone ever trying to teach me. Although I was given watches when I was a child. I was too embarassed to ask anyone because it seemed such an obvious thing that everyone knew.

I finally learnt how to tell the time in a german class. We had pictures of clocks with various hands and we had to write in german what the time was. My teacher had taught us the time in german showing us on a clock. Whilst filling in the times on the diagrams it finally all made sense.

YANBU. It's in the curriculum in infant school. Unless there's a specific reason someone can't do it of course. Maybe he used to be able to but has forgotten? Not sure that happens?

I know a doctor who can’t tell the time on an anologue face

I think it's a bit of a shame. Analogue clocks can actually be a very useful visual tool for young children. In my dc's previous school they hsd coloured translucent bits of plastic in the shape of 15 mins, 30 minutes etc that they could put over tge clock so children who are too young to knoe how long 15 minutes is could see the hand moving through the coloured bit and got an idea of how much time they had left.