What Does Our Class Look Like?

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1 Getting Started
2 Watch and Notice
3 Try It Together
4 Sketch Your Poster Layout in Your Copy
5 Class Challenge
6 Record the Headline
7 What Did We Notice?
8 What's Next
Pupil practice

1 - Getting Started ~4 mins

Key point

This module we have posed questions, tallied data, drawn bar charts and pie charts, and worked out the mean, median, mode and range. Today you put it all together into one poster that answers a single question: what does our class look like?

Illustration for Getting Started This is the fun one. By the end you'll have a poster that shows off exactly who 5th Class is, in a single glance.

What one question would tell a visitor the most about us? Let's agree on our class question now so we can collect the data together.

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+5 XP

2 - Watch and Notice ~7 mins

Here is one class's data shown two ways at once. The same survey — how 5th Class gets to school — appears as a bar chart and as a pie chart, with a summary-stats panel beside them.

Notice that the tallest bar and the biggest slice tell the same story. The bar chart shows you the exact count for each way of travelling; the pie chart shows you each way's share of the whole class. Both belong on your poster.

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+10 XP

3 - Try It Together ~7 mins

We already agreed our class question, so let's collect the data live and build it on the board together.

We'll work in order: tally the class, read off each count, agree the best y-axis step to read it by, then drag the bars up to our counts.

Worked example

Next we turn one count into a pie-chart slice, so you can do the same with your own data. Take a category's count, divide it by the whole class, and that gives its share of the circle. Here is an easy one to see the method: imagine a class of 28 pupils where 14 walk. Half the class walks, so the Walk slice fills half the circle (180°). If 7 of those 28 cycle, that is a quarter, so the Cycle slice is a quarter of the circle (90°). Our own class total will be different, so we will divide by our number when we build ours. Big count, big slice.

Key point

Last, we work the summary line together. The mean is the total divided by how many values there are; the median is the middle value once they are in order; the mode is the most common; the range is the biggest count take away the smallest.

Build our own chart

+15 XP

4 - Sketch Your Poster Layout in Your Copy ~3 mins

COPYBOOK MOMENT

In your maths copy, sketch your poster layout: draw a box where the bar chart will go, a box where the pie chart will go, and a box for your summary stats (mean, median, mode, range). Write your headline figure in the centre.

+10 XP

5 - Class Challenge ~16 mins

Now build your own survey poster — this is where your class comes to life on a page. Choose your question, use the class data (or your own three-to-five-category data), and put a bar chart, a pie chart and a summary-stats panel on one page. Write your headline finding big in the middle.

Key point

Your must-do floor is the bar chart and the headline sentence — get those done first. Then build up if there is time: (1) draw the bar chart with a sensible y-step; (2) write your headline finding as one clear sentence; (3) turn the same data into a pie chart, biggest slice first, using the count-over-total method we did together; (4) fill the summary panel with the mean, median, mode and range; (5) as a stretch, add a comment on whether your data is spread evenly across the categories or bunched into one.

Draw a bar chart of your data with a y-axis step that reads clearly for your counts.
Write your headline finding as one clear sentence.
Turn the same data into a pie chart, drawing the biggest slice first, using the count-over-total method.
Fill your summary-stats panel with the mean, median, mode and range of your data.
Stretch: add a comment on whether your data is spread evenly across the categories or bunched into one.

Answers & strategies (teacher)

Draw a bar chart of your data with a y-axis step that reads clearly for your counts. — A bar chart with one bar per category, heights matching the counts, y-step of 2 or 5 chosen so the tallest bar fits without squashing.
Write your headline finding as one clear sentence. — A single sentence naming the biggest category and its share, e.g. 'More than half of our class walks to school.'
Turn the same data into a pie chart, drawing the biggest slice first, using the count-over-total method. — A circle split into proportional slices — each slice found by count ÷ total (for example 14 ÷ 28 = half = 180°); the biggest count gets the biggest slice; slices sum to the whole circle.
Fill your summary-stats panel with the mean, median, mode and range of your data. — Mean = total divided by number of values; median = middle value in order; mode = most common category or value; range = biggest minus smallest.
Stretch: add a comment on whether your data is spread evenly across the categories or bunched into one. — A sentence identifying whether one category dominates (bunched) or the counts are similar (spread evenly), with the range or the biggest slice as evidence.

+15 XP

Pupil practice

Module 7 · Data, Chance and the Co-ordinate Plane Data & Chance

Lesson 106 · What Does Our Class Look Like?

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Teacher Class Feed

1 - Getting Started ~4 mins

2 - Watch and Notice ~7 mins

3 - Try It Together ~7 mins

Build our own chart

4 - Sketch Your Poster Layout in Your Copy ~3 mins

5 - Class Challenge ~16 mins

Unlock the full learning experience

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