Year 2 Positions and Turns

This chapter covers four related skills: describing a position using both a column and a row, naming quarter, half, three-quarter and full turns, telling clockwise from anticlockwise, and continuing a repeating pattern by spotting the group that repeats. Position vocabulary is taught alongside the grid work: above, below, left, right, between and next to.

Two ideas are taught head on. The first is that a position always needs two directions. Saying a counter is in the second column tells you nothing about the row, so pupils are pushed to give both every time. The second is that a half turn is two quarter turns, not a quarter of a circle, which is a common slip once the language of fractions arrives.

Includes a worked explanation, a tips page suggesting pupils stand up and make the turns with their own bodies rather than reading arrows, common misconceptions addressed directly (giving only one direction, mixing up clockwise and anticlockwise, misjudging the size of a half turn, copying the last shape in a pattern instead of the whole repeating group), and 30 questions across three sections: warm up, getting stronger and challenge, moving from naming turns to worded reasoning problems.

Answers included, with a star chart for pupils to track progress and a confidence check-in at the end. A short note for the adult flags the hardest question in the chapter, that three quarter turns one way finish in the same place as one quarter turn the other way, and suggests walking it out on the floor.

Written by a qualified teacher with over ten years’ classroom experience, aligned to the UK National Curriculum for Year 2 geometry, position and direction (ages 6 to 7).

Supplied as a printable PDF. Suitable for whole-class teaching, small-group intervention, tutoring or home learning.