What it is. Every page opens with the same four pieces of information in the same four places.
Why our test works. A heading is checked by counting, not by judging — four things, four places. That is why it can be enforced from day one without argument, and why it costs nothing after a week. Enforce it in October and you are fighting a habit instead of building one.
Leans on. Grade 2 ended with the margin and line spacing.
Watch for. Their WORK still goes on the printed sheet this term. The notebook is being learned, not yet lived in.
Write the full heading: name, date, subject, topic. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher builds the heading on the blank notebook slide one text box at a time — name upper The class reads the teaching page printed at the top of the sheet — our own writing, so a child who was absent can still get the lesson.
You open by saying where this sits — what it follows and what it is part of — in one sentence, and then you give them the reason it matters, in your own words, for about ten seconds.
Then you do one yourself, building it on the board and leaving it up: Teacher builds the heading on the blank notebook slide one text box at a time — name upper left, date far right, subject under the name, topic under the date. Nothing is erased. The board copy is what they look back at when they stall, so it stays there for the whole lesson.
The We-do is the main whiteboard moment of the lesson — short answers, boards up on your signal, every child visible at once. Class names each piece and where it goes before writing it. Teacher reveals the pieces in the same order. If the answer is a whole sentence rather than a word, take it on the printed sheet instead, because a sentence written on a whiteboard is written once and destroyed.
They read the teaching page — printed at the top of today's sheet — with you, either read-aloud or FASE, never round robin. Stop at the worked example and let them look at it.
Exit directions in full, standing still, before anyone moves. Then they work alone: Write the full heading on a fresh page. Check all four against the slide.
You close on the exit direction — Point to the piece that goes under the date. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: Name, date, subject, topic — four corners, every page.
Their WORK still goes on the printed sheet this term. The notebook is being learned, not yet lived in.