We could ask the class anything at all today.

Some questions are easy to count, and some are not.

If I ask "what do you like?", everyone says something different. We could never count that.

If I ask "which is your favourite fruit — apple, banana or orange?", every answer fits one of just three groups.

Which of those two questions would be easier to count?

Watch how we tidy up a messy question. "What do you like?" is too big — nobody could count all those answers. We can shape it into "which is your favourite fruit — apple, banana or orange?" Now there are only three answers, and every person fits one of them. Look at the pre-set tally below: the three answer headings are ready, and the counts are already gathered. Notice how each answer had exactly one heading to land under.

Now watch a second question take shape. "How do you travel?" becomes "how do you travel to school — walk, cycle, car or bus?" Four tidy answers, and the headings are set up before we count a single hand.

Now we pick one question for the whole class and get it ready to count. Our class question today is: which is your favourite fruit — apple, banana or orange? This is the question we will all write in our copies later, so remember it.

Here is what happens now: one pupil comes to the board, sets up the three answer headings, and tallies each hand as it goes up. Everyone else watches and puts a hand up when their answer is called. Watch that every hand fits one heading — if a hand does not fit, our headings need fixing.

Now we get some new questions ready to count. This is not a survey: nobody puts up a hand to vote, and we do not count anything. For each question we only choose the answers and write them as headings, like the fruit headings on our tally chart.

We do one question at a time. Write its headings in your copy. Then one of us writes them on the board and we check them together. Each question is a little harder than the one before.