Choosing Tenses for Precise Meaning
Your child can choose the tense that fits the exact timing. They mix past, present and future to show when each thing happens.
In curriculum terms
Use verb tense to convey various times, sequences, states, and conditions, selecting tenses deliberately to express the precise timing and nature of actions and events
Ages are typical, not deadlines — follow your child’s pace. How to help at home →
How to tell they’ve got it
Tick these off as you see them — no test required.
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Try this together
When your child writes a story that jumps between past events and present thoughts, do they shift verb tenses deliberately and accurately — so the reader always knows exactly when each event is happening?
Where this sits on the map
Stuck here? Check the skills it builds on first. Confident? Here’s what it unlocks.
solid = must come firstdashed = helps
Curriculum alignment
Where this fits in the official school curriculum — our best automated guess, not yet checked by a person.
Show candidate curriculum codes · 1 ACARA · 1 VIC
Australian Curriculum v9 candidate
understand past, present and future tenses and their impact on meaning in a sentence
Victorian Curriculum 2.0 codes & levels only
These are candidate alignments generated by semantic matching — machine-suggested and unreviewed (v0.1), not official or verified mappings. For official curriculum content see australiancurriculum.edu.au, curriculum.nsw.edu.au and f10.vcaa.vic.edu.au. Don’t rely on them for registration or compliance purposes.