TheSchoolRun.com closure date
As we informed you a few months ago, TheSchoolRun has had to make the difficult decision to close due to financial pressures and the company has now ceased trading. We had hoped to keep our content available through a partnership with another educational provider, but this provider has since withdrawn from the agreement.
As a result, we now have to permanently close TheSchoolRun.com. However, to give subscribers time to download any content they’d like to keep, we will keep the website open until 31st July 2025. After this date, the site will be taken down and there will be no further access to any resources. We strongly encourage you to download and save any resources you think you may want to use in the future.
In particular, we suggest downloading:
- Learning packs
- All the worksheets from the 11+ programme, if you are following this with your child
- Complete Learning Journey programmes (the packs below include all 40 worksheets for each programme)
You should already have received 16 primary school eBooks (worth £108.84) to download and keep. If you haven’t received these, please contact us at [email protected] before 31st July 2025, and we will send them to you.
We are very sorry that there is no way to continue offering access to resources and sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused.
What are irregular verbs?
What are irregular verbs?
A verb is a doing or being word (for example: sit, talk, eat, think, feel).
A verb tense tells us when the action or state described by the verb happened. The three main verb tenses in English are the present, the past, and the future.
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How do irregular verbs work?
When we put a verb into the past tense, we usually add the suffixes -d, -ed or -ied, for example:
Some verbs are irregular and do not follow this pattern but form their past tense in a particular way (by changing a vowel, for example); sometimes their past participle is the same as the past tense (as it is in regular verbs), but sometimes it differs.
The past participles in blue below are ones that differ from the past tense of the verb.
The past participle of a verb is used:
- to describe an action that has been completed in the past using the past perfect tense, 'The floor has been swept'
- to write a sentence in the passive voice: 'The jacket was torn by Louise'
- as an adjective: 'Nothing can mend my broken heart'
While most verbs form their different tenses according to an established "formula", some verbs do not form their tenses in a regular way and are called irregular verbs.
When do children learn about irregular verbs in primary school?
In Year 1, children will learn how to add the suffix -ed to a regular verb to put it into the past tense (for example: hunt - hunted, jump - jumped, etc.).
In Year 2, children will learn about verbs that have a short vowel and a consonant (for example, pop). When these verbs are put in the past tense, the last consonant needs to be doubled before -ed is added (popped).
Though there is nothing in the national curriculum to say that irregular verbs should be explicitly taught at primary school, most of us learn them simply by speaking and writing the English language every day.
The correct use of irregular verb forms is part of Standard English and it is something that is likely to be picked up on for individual children through a teacher's marking.
