Primary 2 Maths | Position and Direction: Tutor Prep Guide | 45 minutes from left and right to reading a route

2026-11-08

Tutor lesson-prep guides · Primary Maths

Position questions are rarely failed because a child cannot tell left from right. They are failed because nobody says whose left we mean. Two people facing each other have opposite lefts, so fix that rule before anything else.

Objectives — Pupils can: (1) describe where an object is using up, down, left, right, in front and behind, and state whose viewpoint they are using; (2) name the four compass points and place them on a map (north up, south down, west left, east right); (3) give the row and column of a single square on a grid; (4) follow and give a route instruction of up to three steps.

01 Prerequisites (3-minute check)

If any of these fails, fix it before the lesson starts.

Skill	Quick check	Pass mark
Counting to ten	What comes after square 3	Square 4
Left and right	Hold up your right hand	The hand they write with
Order in a line	Who is at the front of the queue	The first person
Reading a simple map	Looking at a grid picture	Can say how many rows and columns

02 Lesson flow (45 minutes)

Time	Stage	Tutor does	Student does
0–8 min	Starter: whose left	Stand face to face with the pupil, both raise the right hand, ask whose side that is on	Says “facing each other means opposite lefts”
8–17 min	Up, down, left, right, in front, behind	Use real classroom objects: the door at the back, the windows on the left	Adds “from where I am standing” every time
17–26 min	The four compass points	Find north with a compass and label the four walls of the room	States “north up, south down, west left, east right”
26–35 min	Grid references	Draw a 3 by 4 grid, show “row 2, column 3”, then show the swap	Writes three squares correctly
35–43 min	Giving directions	Model “two squares forward, then one square right”, pupil follows with a finger	Names the end point and reverses the route
43–45 min	Exit check	Three quick oral questions	Answers independently

03 Teaching script (read it out)

Scene 1: State the viewpoint before the direction

A pupil says “the teacher’s left” when they mean their own right. This is not carelessness; there is no reference person in their head. Make the reference explicit every time: from where I am standing, or from where Mei is standing.
Then run the face-to-face experiment: two people raise the same hand and the pupil sees the two hands land on opposite sides. One demonstration replaces ten explanations.

Pupil does: before answering, say “from ___” and only then say left or right.

Scene 2: North-up is a map rule, not a fact of nature

Pupils assume up on paper means forward, so a staircase drawn downwards gets answered as north. Say plainly that every map is drawn with north at the top, so moving down the page is moving south.
Place a compass beside the map and point at north so the child sees north physically at the top of the sheet. Once the convention is fixed, every map question can be worked out rather than guessed.

Pupil says: where each of the four compass points sits on the map.

Scene 3: Row then column, never the other way round

Pupils write row 2 column 3 as row 3 column 2, which is a completely different square. Fix both the wording and the gesture: count rows first (left to right), then columns (top to bottom), pointing with two fingers.
Checking is easy: after writing the reference, the pupil must point to that square. If the finger lands elsewhere, the order was swapped.

Pupil does: point to the square after writing it; if they cannot find it, the answer is wrong.

04 Question types and worked steps

Type	Example	Steps	Answer
Grid reference	A 3 by 4 grid, name row 2 column 3	Rows first, then columns, then point	The square at row 2, column 3
Relative position	The pencil is left of the book; where is the book	Re-state with the other reference person	The book is right of the pencil
Compass direction	On the map, which side of the park is the school	North up, then use a cross through the point	North of the park
Route instruction	From the start, two forward then one right	One step at a time, naming each direction	Two up and one right of the start

Sanity check (teach this): Reasonableness checks: every direction answer must name whose viewpoint it uses; facing people have opposite lefts; maps are always north up, south down, west left, east right; references are always row then column; each step of a route has exactly one direction, never a diagonal; the answer must be pointable on the picture with a finger.

05 Independent practice (3 questions)

Question	Answer	What to watch
5 grid reference questions	A 3 by 4 grid, two of them reversed (given the square, name it)	Checks the order is not swapped
4 relative position questions	Two face-to-face pairs, two side-by-side object pairs	Checks the viewpoint is stated
4 route questions	Up to three steps, two of them asking for the return route	Checks one direction per step

06 Common mistakes and what to say

Mistake	Student writes	Say this
Left and right from their own side only	Says “the pencil is on the right” with no viewpoint	“From whose side? Your right and my right can be opposite.”
Swapping row and column	Row 2 column 3 written as row 3 column 2	“Rows first, then columns. Point to the square and see if your finger finds it.”
Guessing map directions	Says up means forward, so up the page is north	“Maps are always drawn north up. It has nothing to do with which way you face.”
Diagonal route steps	Says “one square up and to the right”	“One direction per step: forward first, then right. Two steps, not one.”

07 Homework (paper, section and question numbers)

Primary 1 to 6 Maths test papers with answers — Do the P2 position questions, naming the viewpoint each time
Primary Maths chapter index — All chapters in the subject
Redo this chapter — Redo four route questions, including the return route twice

08 Exit check (last 5 minutes)

Question	Answer	Decision
What must you say before left or right	Whose viewpoint it is	Silence means going back to the second stage
Which compass point is at the top of a map	North; west is left, east is right	Wrong answer means going back to the fourth stage
In “row 2 column 3”, what is counted first	Rows, then columns	Saying columns means going back to the fifth stage
How many directions per route step	One	Saying two means going back to the sixth stage

09 Tutor FAQ

What if there is no compass?

Use the sun or a phone compass. The point is that the child meets real north, not a symbol on paper.

Should the face-to-face reversal be taught in P2?

Yes, but only as “opposite”. Mirrors can wait. Skip it and every map question afterwards keeps failing.

The pupil says it right but writes it wrong

Insist they point to the square after writing. If the finger cannot find it, mark it wrong; not finding it means they do not really know where it is.

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A TutorZone lesson-prep guide. Written by the TutorZone team; questions and lesson flow are original and are not taken from any school or publisher material.