Display 305 on its own. Take three hands-up answers, not open call-outs. Give five seconds of quiet think-time first.

Listen for whether pupils can already say the 3 is worth most because it means three hundred. Steer the talk toward the zero rather than letting it pass: ask what would 35 look like written down, and is that the same as 305? to surface why the zero matters.

Walk each example aloud, one at a time, pointing to each column on the board. Name the three-column layout 'the place-value mat' the first time so pupils have a word for it in the next step.

• 247 — name each column: two hundreds, four tens, seven units. Ask the class to read it back as one number.
• 408 — pause on the empty tens column; press why can't we just write 48? This is the place-holder idea.
• 530 — the empty units column this time; same place-holder reasoning.
• 999 — ask what comes next? and pause before revealing nothing yet. This seeds the next lesson's thousands column without teaching it today.

This round is for talking it through together — pupils come to the board one at a time and the class agrees or corrects out loud.

Build the four numbers shown on screen in turn: start with 362 (all columns filled), then move to the ones with a zero — 207, 640, 300. After each build, ask the class does every column match the digit?

Watch for the place-holder slip: a pupil building 207 may leave the tens column out entirely and read it as 27. Revoice: the zero is holding the tens place so the 2 stays in the hundreds. Bring four pupils to the board across the round.

This round is the practice bank — pupils take turns at the board, the board-pupil reads each column aloud, the class confirms, and then you check. Keep the board work brisk rather than over-explaining.

The bank runs 162 → 308 → 740 → 909, each a step trickier with the zero. For each one, ask a quick what's tricky about the zero here?:

• 162 — warm-up, all three columns filled.
• 308 — empty tens; the zero holds the place.
• 740 — empty units; same reasoning, other end.
• 909 — empty tens between two nines, the hardest one to read aloud.

Use the on-screen Check tick as part of your narration — yes, that's it — so the whole class sees the confirmation.