What it is. The heading is now automatic — done from memory, at speed, before the thinking starts.
Why our test works. Setting up while composing splits attention at the worst moment. By Grade 4 the heading should cost nothing, and timing it is the fastest way to find the children for whom it still costs a great deal — they are the ones who lose two minutes and their place every lesson.
Leans on. Grade 3's Unit 0 taught this page; here it is assumed.
Watch for. Time it against the clock. Thirty seconds is the target and children enjoy beating it.
Produce the full heading correctly without prompting. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher writes the heading once at full speed; the slide shows it complete rather than bui The class reads Writing Book 4, p.40 — our own page, 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 writes the heading once at full speed; the slide shows it complete rather than built. 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 writes it from memory, then checks against the slide and fixes what is missing. If the answer is a whole sentence rather than a word, take it on their notebooks instead, because a sentence written on a whiteboard is written once and destroyed.
They open Writing Book 4 to page 40 and read it with you. Stop at the worked example and let them look at it.
Exit directions in full, standing still, before anyone moves. Then they work alone: Set up two pages with correct headings. Time the second one.
You close on the exit direction — Name any piece you had to fix. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: Heading in thirty seconds, then start.
Time it against the clock. Thirty seconds is the target and children enjoy beating it.