Good Practice - introducing data handling

Key Stage:

Subject:

ICT

Key Skills

1 - Numeracy

National Curriculum Links:

1 - ICT, AT1, 3

2 - Ma, AT2, 4.2

Objectives

1 - To collect relevant data on birthdays

2 - To use a tally chart to record findings

3 - To input data into a simple graphing program

4 - To understand the results given are only as reliable as the information entered

Outline of activity

As a whole class, the teacher and pupils will collect data on months of birthdays in the class. The teacher creates a tally chart and marks for each month how many birthdays there are. The children could physically stand in groups representing each month for the pupils to visualise which month has the most or least birthdays. The teacher will then show how to input this data into a simple graphing program with a block graph. Pupils can then take it in turns to input the data.

Plenary

Pupils discuss which block has the most entries. They then discuss the need to collect information accurately or the computer will have the wrong information