What it is. Heading, margin and three-level notes are now habit, checked once and not taught again.
Why our test works. By Grade 5 the page should cost no attention at all. Checking once at the start of the year finds the few children for whom it still does — and they are the ones losing two minutes and their place in every lesson of every subject, not just this one.
Leans on. Grades 3 and 4 built this page.
Watch for. Do not re-teach a class that has it. Find the four who do not and fix those pages.
Re-establish heading, margin and outline conventions for the year. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher shows last year's exemplar and this year's, and names the one difference to come. The class reads Writing Book 5, 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 shows last year's exemplar and this year's, and names the one difference to come. 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 sets up a page and self-checks against a printed list. 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 5 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 a page and outline a short passage at three levels.
You close on the exit direction — Name the feature you nearly forgot. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: Set it up once; it should cost you nothing.
Do not re-teach a class that has it. Find the four who do not and fix those pages.