Why bookmark this one (and send it to the staffroom)

Every teacher has lived the moment: forty minutes into a test, a browser tab refreshes, the projector input flickers, the laptop goes to sleep — and the timer everyone has been watching resets to zero. This timer is built so that cannot happen. The countdown is stored as a fixed finish time, so the only thing that can change the number on screen is the actual passage of time. Reopen the page and it shows exactly what the clock says it should.

That is the whole case for sharing it with colleagues: it is the timer that is still running and still correct when the lesson does not go to plan. Use the Share with a colleague button under the timer to send it across.

How the crash-proof part actually works

Most web timers count down by subtracting one from a number every second and holding that number in memory. Close the page and the number is gone; the next load starts from scratch. This one does the opposite. When you press Start it writes the precise clock time each phase should end — for a two-hour exam started at 9:00, it records 11:00 — into your browser’s local storage. On every tick, and on every fresh load, it simply asks “what time is it now, and how far is that from 11:00?”

Because the answer is derived from the clock rather than a counter, nothing about closing or reloading the page can corrupt it. If a laptop sleeps for fifteen minutes and wakes, the timer does not resume fifteen minutes behind — it shows the correct, smaller number, because fifteen real minutes genuinely passed. All of this lives entirely in your own browser: no data is sent anywhere, and the page needs no connection once it has opened.

Reading time, then working time

Formal exams rarely start with the pen moving. In New South Wales, every HSC paper opens with a short reading time — commonly five minutes in which students may read but not write — before the official working time begins. The vocabulary is NESA’s own. This timer mirrors that structure: choose a reading-plus-working preset and it counts the reading phase, chimes, then rolls straight into working time without you touching anything. The screen is soft orange during reading and white during working time, and the phase name sits at the top, so the room can tell which part they are in from across the hall.

The same two-phase shape suits revision sprints (a focused block, then a break) and any timed task where a warm-up precedes the real work. If your exam does not use reading time, the whole-exam presets are a single working phase.

Countdown, or clock times?

The timer has two displays, switched with the toggle on the card. Countdown shows the time remaining in big digits — the reassuring “how long is left” view. Clock times shows the opposite: the fixed times on the wall clock — when reading started, when working time starts, and the all-important finish time, written large (for example, Finish at 11:05).

The clock-times view exists for a reason worth teaching. In a real exam, no one calls out the minutes; a student has to look at the clock, see when the paper ends, and manage their own time backwards from that finish — deciding how long to spend on each section so nothing is left unfinished. A shrinking countdown does the thinking for them; a fixed finish time makes them do it themselves. Showing the finish time on the board, and letting students plan their own pacing against it, builds exactly the habit they need when they sit the paper alone. The current time stays in the corner in both modes, so the two numbers — now, and the finish — are always side by side.

Common exam lengths to set

The presets cover the durations teachers reach for most, but they are starting points you adjust — the live exam specification from your board always wins. A few reference points:

Always confirm exact timing and any extra-time provisions against the official paper or your exam board’s current instructions before the day.

Running it in the room (for a new teacher)

The controls are deliberately plain. Set your own time in the highlighted box at the top, or tap a preset; the big Start button waits for you to say “you may begin” so the count starts on your word, not on a mis-tap. Once running you have Pause, a one-tap +1 min for the inevitable “just one more minute”, and Reset.

Press Full screen before the exam so the digits fill the board, choose Countdown or Clock times depending on whether you want students watching the time left or pacing themselves to a finish time, and pick the sound that suits the room — gentle chimes, a strong alarm, or spoken voice cues in the custom sound section. Run the volume test first to be sure the back row can hear it; the test stays on the timer, so you can quietly re-check it mid-exam. The final minute of working time turns red as a quiet warning, and the tab title shows the countdown so you can glance at it from another tab.

Questions teachers ask