Important update from TheSchoolRun
For the past 13 years, TheSchoolRun has been run by a small team of mums working from home, dedicated to providing quality educational resources to primary school parents. Unfortunately, rising supplier costs and falling revenue have made it impossible for us to continue operating, and we’ve had to make the difficult decision to close. The good news: We’ve arranged for another educational provider to take over many of our resources. These will be hosted on a new portal, where the content will be updated and expanded to support your child’s learning.
What this means for subscribers:
- Your subscription is still active, and for now, you can keep using the website as normal — just log in with your usual details to access all our articles and resources*.
- In a few months, all resources will move to the new portal. You’ll continue to have access there until your subscription ends. We’ll send you full details nearer the time.
- As a thank you for your support, we’ll also be sending you 16 primary school eBooks (worth £108.84) to download and keep.
A few changes to be aware of:
- The Learning Journey weekly email has ended, but your child’s plan will still be updated on your dashboard each Monday. Just log in to see the recommended worksheets.
- The 11+ weekly emails have now ended. We sent you all the remaining emails in the series at the end of March — please check your inbox (and spam folder) if you haven’t seen them. You can also follow the full programme here: 11+ Learning Journey.
If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected]. Thank you for being part of our journey it’s been a privilege to support your family’s learning.
*If you need to reset your password, it will still work as usual. Please check your spam folder if the reset email doesn’t appear in your inbox.
What are imperial units?
What are imperial units?
When we measure the length, mass or capacity of something, we need a standard unit to measure it in.
In the past, imperial units of measurement were used in the UK. The imperial system has gradually been replaced by the metric system, which is easier to understand as it deals with tens, hundreds and thousands.
Measuring with imperial units
This table tells you all you need to know about imperial units and how they relate to metric units:
When do children learn about imperial units in primary school?
In Key Stage 1, children will be introduced to standard and non-standard measures and required to use vocabulary such as taller, shorter, longer, heavier, lighter, empty, half-full and full.
In Year 3, they will be introduced to the metric units of measurement and will be asked to measure length, mass and capacity and then record their measurements.
By Year 4, they will be expected to convert metric measurements; for example, they may be told that a door is 2 metres tall and then asked to give this measurement in cm (200 cm). They continue this work in Year 5, going onto harder tasks, such as converting 0.3cm to mm (3mm) or 3.7kg to grams (3700g).
In Year 5, imperial units will be introduced. Children will be asked to find approximate equivalences between the metric and imperial units. The curriculum states that they need to know about inches, pounds and pints.
In Year 6, children will be asked to convert between miles and kilometres. It is possible your child's teacher will broach this by telling them that 5 miles equals approximately 8 kilometres; therefore, if you are given a journey in kilometres and want to convert it to miles, you divide by 8 and then multiply by 5. If you are given a journey in miles and want to convert it to kilometres, you divide it by 5 and then multiply by 8.
Please do not worry if this all seems totally baffling! Imperial units represent a very small part of the maths curriculum, and there is likely to be only one question in the SATs on it. It is however, very important that your child is confident with the metric system (reading scales, converting measurements, calculating with measurements), so spend plenty of time on this before attempting to think about imperial units.
