Statement of Intent

The statistics curriculum across GCSE and A level aims to give students the opportunity, should they desire, to explore in more detail an area of mathematics introduced in Year 8 to all students via the mathematics curriculum. An area that has practical application for all our students to the world beyond education. We provide students with the necessary tools and conceptual foundations to analyse data, extract information intelligently from data given and be able to conclude and make decisions based on it. We focus on all students being able to critically assess the quality of analyses that others present to them to help in their decision-making process, becoming independent critical thinkers.

Teachers provide bespoke lessons based on the individual needs within each class. Statistics involves asking questions about the world and finding answers to them in a scientific way, helping to understand a subject more deeply. This toolbox of skills acquired is intended to be transferable beyond the statistics classroom, the skills developed opening up opportunities to enhance other studies or career progression.  

Purpose

The course is structured around the statistical enquiry cycle, the process in which you carry out an investigation in the real world. This involves following five chronological stages, which we explore in the order that they occur.

Hypothesis and Planning: At the outset of the course, we equip pupils with the basic knowledge of key statistical terms. This allows us to imbed these terms by using them from that point in the course at all opportunities. We introduce the idea that all investigations start with an issue that needs addressing, which we formulate as a hypothesis. Pupils are made aware that this planning stage will need to encapsulate all future elements of the course.

Collecting data: We recognise the issues of bias and lack of representation and design a data collection method to minimise them. This involves learning methods of collecting primary and secondary data and practising the skills of selecting suitable methods.  

Processing and Representing data: This involves taking the previously collected data and organising, cleaning, displaying and calculating summary statistics. They critically evaluate the needs of the audience when making these decisions and consider the use of technology to work efficiently.

Interpreting Results: Interpret all previous work in the context of the problem. Pupils apply their skills and knowledge to draw conclusions and make inferences and predictions.

Evaluating: Pupils consider any weaknesses in their methods to be able to refine the process for future investigations.

Each stage of the process builds on the previous stage, which enables the teacher to interweave the curriculum. Foundational knowledge of the previous stage needs to be secure in order to move on to the next stage of the cycle.

At strategic points within this cycle we test pupil’s knowledge and their ability to apply this knowledge before we move on to the next stage. We follow the process of providing pupils a toolkit of methods for collecting and describing data (numerically and visually) before pupils can critically evaluate their strategy or a strategy given to them. Each stage we give first the knowledge, they then learn to apply that knowledge and then finally critically evaluate that approach.

We embed the knowledge gained throughout the course by ending with pupils in the second term of year 11 either undertaking a small investigation working through the enquiry cycle or a booklet of questions that take you through the cycle. This takes the place of the coursework in the previous GCSE syllabus which enables pupils to see how all elements of the course fit together. Each element of the cycle starts with the more accessible elements of the course as foundation content and builds in complexity to address the higher curriculum content. This again allows pupils to develop a foundation of core skills before stretching the highest attaining pupils in terms of complex concepts based on previous learning within that topic.

The A level course also follows the statistical enquiry cycle starting with the basic knowledge and skills acquired at GCSE but explores the topics in further depth with more numerical analysis required with a larger toolkit of methods for describing, analysing and evaluating that data.