Posing a Question and Collecting Data with a Tally

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1 Getting Started
2 Watch and Notice
3 Try It Together
4 Keep Your Own Tally in Your Copy
5 Class Challenge
Pupil practice

1 - Getting Started ~4 mins

Here is something we could find out about our own class today: What is everyone's favourite GAA county? How do we get to school each morning? How many pets do we have between us?

Which of these would be easy to count, and which would be tricky? Hands up if you have a question you would love to ask the whole class.

Teacher Notes

Write three pupil-suggested questions on the board. Take three hands-up answers, not open call-outs. Then ask the class to judge which has a clear, countable set of answers (e.g. "favourite county" is countable; "what did you have for breakfast?" has too many different answers to count tidily).

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+5 XP

2 - Watch and Notice ~8 mins

Watch as we tally "favourite fruit" with the class. Each time someone calls their answer, one mark goes in that fruit's row. Notice what happens at the fifth vote: instead of five marks in a line, we draw the fifth one straight across the first four, like a gate. That gate lets us count in fives.

Look at the three tallies below. The first shows five votes for apple, which is one full closed gate. The second reaches seven, which is one full gate and two more. And the last one is finished, so we read each row back as a total.

Teacher Notes

Point at each tally in turn and read it aloud. The make-or-break idea is crossing the gate on the fifth mark — say it explicitly: one, two, three, four, and the fifth goes straight across.

Five votes for apple — show the closed gate; count it as one gate of five.
Seven votes — one full gate of five, then two loose marks; count "five, six, seven".
Finished tally — read each row's total off the gates before checking against the showTotal.

This is display mode — the snapshots are fixed; narrate over them rather than asking the class to tap cells.

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+10 XP

3 - Try It Together ~11 mins

Today we run our own class survey on the board: we will agree one question with a clear set of answers, then keep a live tally as everyone calls their choice. One pupil is the recorder at the board, and the class agrees or corrects each mark as it goes in.

Key point

Remember the gate on every fifth mark.

Our class survey

Teacher Notes

This round is for talking it through together — pupils take turns at the board and the class agrees or corrects out loud.

Agree one real question first (e.g. favourite break-time game with three answers). Tap a category row to add each vote as the pupil calls it. Rotate four pupils as recorder so several get a turn at marking. Watch for the classic slip: a fifth mark drawn upright instead of across the gate. When you see it, pause and ask the class "is that a gate? where does the fifth mark go?"

Keep the board work brisk — one vote, one mark, move on.

+15 XP

4 - Keep Your Own Tally in Your Copy ~3 mins

COPYBOOK MOMENT

In your maths copy, write the class question at the top, then list the answer categories down the side. As the votes are called out, keep your own tally beside each category. Cross the gate on every fifth mark.

Teacher Notes

Walk the room glancing for the gate being crossed correctly on the fifth mark — this is whole-class copybook practice, not marking. No collecting, no grading.

+10 XP

5 - Class Challenge ~8 mins

Now we set up and keep a tally for two class surveys on the board, the second a little trickier than the first. For each one we first agree a sensible set of answers, then we count vote by vote. The two surveys are:

Favourite break-time game — we agree three answers, then tally each vote.
Letters in your first name — we group the answers into bands (1–3, 4–6, 7 or more), then tally.

Key point

We will set up each survey's answers on the board together, one at a time, just before we start counting it.

Two small class surveys

Teacher Notes

This round is the practice bank — pupils take turns at the board, check each answer, and the class confirms before moving on. Keep the board work brisk rather than over-explaining. The tally here is teacher- or pupil-drawn live on the board, vote by vote.

The thinking work is deciding the categories before counting. For the second survey, write the three bands on the board first so every answer has a home, and ask each pupil to count their own name's letters before they call out their band.

Survey 1 (3 clear categories) — quick warm-up; one vote, one mark.
Survey 2 (letter-count bands) — set the bands up first, then tally; a vote must fall in exactly one band.

+15 XP

Pupil practice

Module 9 · Data and Chance Mixed

Lesson 93 · Posing a Question and Collecting Data with a Tally

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Teacher Class Feed

1 - Getting Started ~4 mins

2 - Watch and Notice ~8 mins

3 - Try It Together ~11 mins

Our class survey

4 - Keep Your Own Tally in Your Copy ~3 mins

5 - Class Challenge ~8 mins

Two small class surveys

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