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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:

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  • As a thank you for your support, we’ll also be sending you 16 primary school eBooks (worth £108.84) to download and keep.

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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.

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What are the present continuous and the past continuous?

What are the present continuous and the past continuous?
We use the present continuous and past continuous verb tenses when talking or writing about actions that continue or continued over a period of time In our parents' guide to the continuous or progressive verb tenses we explain what children are taught in the primary-school classroom.

What are the present continuous (progressive) and past continuous?

A verb tense tells us when the action of state described by the verb happened. The three main verb tenses in English are the present, the past, and the future.

The present tense is made up of:
 

  • simple present / present simple
  • present continuous / present progressive
  • present perfect

The past tense is made up of:
 

  • simple past / past simple
  • past continuous / past progressive
  • past perfect

The present continuous and past continuous tenses (also called present progressive and past progressive) are used when we are describing actions that continue for a period of time in the present or in the past. 


To form the present continuous and past continuous we use the present / past tense of the verb to be and the present participle of the main verb (I am walking / I was walking). 

The present continuous / present progressive explained

The present continuous tense is used to describe an action that is happening at the moment of speaking:

I am leaving work.

The past continuous / past progressive explained

The past continuous is used for a continuous action in the past, for example:

I was working hard when the telephone interrupted me.
Everyone was shouting.
They were always arguing.

What are children taught about present and past continuous in KS2?

Children will be introduced to the progressive tenses as part of their KS2 grammar learning. Rather confusingly, these tenses can be referred to as continuous or progressive!
 

What questions should children expect in the Y6 grammar test?

Children may come across questions similar to the following:

Answer: Francesca was learning a song for the school play.

How do teachers teach the present and past continuous?

  • A good way to help children learn this tense is to ask them to write a few sentences about what they did yesterday, all in the past continuous.
  • Teachers may give children word cards (for example: going, walking, fishing, sailing and cooking). Children may be asked to put these words into sentences containing the present continuous.
  • A good game to help with learning this tense is: 'You are... but I am...'. Children play this in pairs. One child says: 'You are...' and then gives an action such as 'digging the garden'. The other child has to mime this. The first child then says 'but I am' and thinks of a different action such as 'baking a cake' which they then mime.