Lesson 8 · Buddy Games Day folio: Part A
The summative assessment for the probability half of the unit. Students sit it individually and under supervision, using the game their team designed in Lesson 7 and the planner they have already had critiqued. Nothing new is taught today.
| Minutes | What happens |
|---|---|
| 0–5 | Planners returned. Students check the three things on the Warm-up tab. Devices open to the Chance Simulator, nothing else. |
| 5–10 | Conditions briefing from the Launch tab. Release code entered on the projected page so the items are visible. |
| 10–50 | Students work through A1 to A7 in their booklet. Teacher circulates, does not teach. |
| 50–55 | Collection routine. Booklets stapled to planners. Silent self-check against the criteria. |
What you are watching for
Circulate for recording, not for thinking. The things worth a quiet prompt are procedural: a student who has not written anything in the observed column after fifteen minutes, a device that has lost the simulator, a booklet where A4 has been skipped because the student is waiting to run the simulation first.
The things not worth a prompt are A6 and A7. Those two items carry the A and B evidence, and a prompt that names the pattern hands over exactly what is being judged. If a student is stuck on A7, the only allowable prompt is to re-read their own A6 answer.
Two students from the same team share raw data and should not share sentences. Identical wording in A6 or A7 from teammates is worth investigating before any judgement is recorded.
Conditions
| Technique | Folio, Part A of two. Part B is Lesson 15. |
|---|---|
| Conditions | Individual, supervised, in class. Approximately 55 minutes. |
| Open | Their own Lesson 7 planner, the conversion mat, a calculator, the Chance Simulator. |
| Closed | Teammates, other lessons’ worksheets, the internet. |
| Judged | Understanding (A1, A3) · Fluency (A2, A4) · Problem-solving (A5) · Reasoning (A6, A7), on balance across the whole folio once Part B is complete. |
Approved adjustments
- Booklet with additional recording structure — identical items, more lines and a worked layout.
- Conversion mat on the desk from the start.
- Task analysis strip for A4 and A5.
- Scribe for A6 and A7 where the PLP specifies it. The student dictates; the scribe does not prompt.
- Additional time as per PLP.
- Separate space for the withdrawal group, same conditions.
Standard conditions
- Standard booklet, A1 to A7.
- Conversion mat available on request.
- Calculator available throughout.
Finished early
- Two further prompts on the Explore tab.
- They are not marked and not part of the folio. They set up the sampling idea Part B needs.
- Nothing is gained by rushing to reach them.
What today is for
Today you show what you can do on your own. You are not learning anything new — you are using what you already know about your team’s game.
I will show that I can…
- list every outcome of my game, with nothing missing and nothing counted twice;
- write each probability as a fraction, a decimal and a percentage;
- work out how many times each outcome should happen in 20, 200 and 2000 trials;
- run the simulation and record what actually happened;
- explain what happens to the gap between expected and observed, and why;
- decide whether my game is fair for a Prep buddy, and prove it with my own numbers.
Set your goal for today
Read the list above. Which one is the biggest stretch for you today? Write it down before you start. You will come back to it at the end of the lesson.
Not sure? The last two are the ones that need writing, not just numbers. Leave yourself time for them.
How hard is each question?
Every item today is labelled, the same as in every lesson of this unit. The labels tell you what kind of thinking the item wants, not how many marks it is worth.
SF — simple familiar
You have done this kind of thing before and it is clear what to do. A1, A2 and A3 are here.
CF — complex familiar
You know the method, but there is more than one step. A4, A5 and A6 are here.
CU — complex unfamiliar
Nobody tells you the answer or the method. A7 is here, on its own.
Before you start — three checks
Five minutes, on your own, with your Lesson 7 planner in front of you. This is not marked. It stops you discovering a problem at minute forty.
1. Is every outcome of your game written on your planner? Say the game out loud in your head and ask: can anything else happen?
2. Do your probabilities add to 1? Add the fractions. If they do not come to 1, an outcome is missing or one is counted twice.
3. Can you open the Chance Simulator and build your game in it right now? Build it before the assessment starts, not during.
Why this is five minutes well spent
Every one of these three faults turned up in the Lesson 7 critique round, and each one is fatal in a different way. A missing outcome breaks A1, A2 and A4 together. Probabilities that do not total 1 usually mean a “nothing happens” case nobody counted. A simulator that will not build the game stops A5 dead, which is the Problem-solving evidence.
A student who finds a fault now has a decision to make, and it is yours to make with them: fix the game and assess the fixed game, or assess the game as planned with the fault noted. Fixing it is almost always better — the assessment is of the student, not of the planner.
The conditions, read out
“This is Part A of your assessment. It is the first half of your folio — the second half happens in Term 4, after Games Day, and I judge the two together.
You work on your own. You can use your own planner, the conversion mat, a calculator and the Chance Simulator. You cannot use anything else and you cannot talk to your teammates, even though you share a game.
There are seven items. A1 to A3 you can do straight from your planner. A4 and A5 need the simulator. A6 and A7 need writing, and they are the two I will be reading most closely, so leave yourself time for them.
If the simulator will not work on your device, put your hand up. Do not sit and wait.”
Entering the release code
The items on the Explore tab are behind a code so they are not readable on a student device in the lessons before today. Enter it once on the projected screen when you start. The code is in the script at the bottom of this file and you can change it — it is a speed bump, not security, since anyone who views the page source can read it. The booklets are the thing students write in; the projection is so the room can see which item we are on.
What to do if the code does not work: the booklet carries every item in full. Project nothing and run the lesson from paper. Nothing in Part A depends on the screen except the simulator.
Part A · seven items
This is the assessment
Your teacher will enter the release code to show the items. Everything you write goes in your paper booklet.
Work on your own, in order. Use your Lesson 7 planner. Write everything in your booklet.
List every possible outcome of your team’s game. One row per outcome. Your list must cover everything that can happen, with nothing listed twice.
For each outcome, write the probability as a fraction, a decimal and a percentage.
Choose two of your outcomes. Mark each one on the 0 to 1 scale in your booklet. Underneath, explain why each one sits where you put it.
Work out the expected frequency of each outcome for 20 trials, 200 trials and 2000 trials. Show your working for one of them.
Run your game in the Chance Simulator at 20, then 200, then 2000 trials. Record the observed frequency of each outcome at each scale in the table.
Compare observed with expected at each scale. Describe what happens to the difference as the number of trials grows, and explain why it happens.
Is this a fair game for a Prep buddy? Make a judgement and justify it using the evidence in your own table.
A4 is where the method shows. Either route is fine — fraction then divide-and-multiply, or decimal then multiply. What is being judged is whether the same procedure is applied correctly at all three scales. A student who gets 20 right and then guesses at 2000 has partial procedures.
A6 is the item most likely to be half-right. The expected answer is that the gap shrinks, and for most games the gap as a fraction of the trials does shrink sharply. But the raw difference usually grows — a game run 2000 times can sit 40 away from expected when the 20-trial run was only 2 away. A student who writes “the difference gets smaller” and whose own table shows it getting bigger has described what they were told to expect rather than what they found. The responses worth an A are the ones that notice this and resolve it: the gap is smaller compared to how many trials there were. Do not prompt for this. It is the discriminating evidence.
A7 has no supplied answer. “Fair” is left undefined on purpose and carries two readings — every player has the same chance, or a five-year-old can actually win sometimes. A response that names which reading it is using, and then argues from its own figures, is doing what the item asks. A response that says “yes it is fair because everyone gets a turn” has not used the evidence. Both a yes and a no can be an A answer; a judgement with no numbers attached cannot.
While you work
- The booklet with extra recording structure — same seven items, more room and a worked layout.
- The conversion mat on your desk from the start. You do not have to ask.
- The task analysis strip for A4 and A5, so you can see the steps in order.
- Someone to write for you on A6 and A7 if that is in your plan. You say it, they write it.
- Extra time if that is in your plan.
If you are not sure whether something is allowed, put your hand up and ask. Asking is never a problem.
Stuck on A7? Read your own A6 answer again. The evidence you need is already in your table.
Run your game at 20 trials five separate times and write down all five results. How different are the five from each other? What does that tell you about trusting a single run of 20?
Without changing how many sections, counters or faces your game has, what could you change to make it fairer for a Prep buddy? Explain what would happen to the numbers.
Collecting the work
“Pens down. Staple your booklet to your Lesson 7 planner — planner behind, booklet in front. Name on both.
Before you hand it up, read your A7 answer one more time. Does it have at least one number from your own table in it? If it does not, you have given me an opinion, not an answer. You have two minutes.”
The two-minute A7 check is deliberate
It is the only prompt given during the assessment, it is given to everyone at once, and it names a requirement that was already written in the item. It lifts a handful of students from an unsupported assertion to a supported one without telling anybody what to conclude. That is an allowable condition of the task, and it is worth more than any amount of circulating.
Sorting the folios tonight, not next week
Sort into three piles as you collect: A6 and A7 both attempted with numbers; one of the two thin; one or both blank. The third pile tells you who needs the Lesson 9 recap aimed at them, and it tells you now rather than in Week 2 of Term 4.
Do not mark yet. The folio is judged as a whole after Part B. What you are doing tonight is reading, not grading.
Back to your goal
Did you do the thing you set out to do today? What is your evidence — which item shows it?
Which item took you the longest? Was that because it was hard, or because of how you set it out?
Part B happens after the holidays and uses the data from Games Day. What is one thing you want to do differently next time?
Hearing this one
Question 2 is the useful one for you. Students who say an item took long because of how they set it out are describing a recording problem, and that is fixable before Part B with a template. Students who say the thinking was hard are describing something else entirely, and the two need different responses in Lesson 9.
Resist turning this into a post-mortem of the content. Nobody should leave the room knowing whether they got A4 right, because the next conversation about it happens in Term 4 and it should be about the pattern, not about marks.
One line before you go
Write the sentence you would want your Term 4 self to read before Part B.
What you need for this lesson
| File | Who gets it |
|---|---|
| resources/l8-01-part-a-booklet.pdf | One per student. Print single sided — students work across the tables. |
| resources/l8-02-part-a-booklet-adjusted.pdf | Same seven items with more recording structure. For students whose plan specifies it, and for anyone who asks. |
| resources/l8-03-fallback-game-card.pdf | Spares only, for a team whose game is not assessable. Hand out individually, not to the room. |
| shared/chance-simulator.html | Open on every device before students arrive. |
| shared/conversion-mat.pdf | On the desk for approved students, on the side bench for everyone else. |
| shared/task-analysis-strips.pdf | For A4 and A5 where the plan specifies it. |
| Lesson 7 planners | Returned at the start, handed up stapled behind the booklet at the end. |
| teacher-only-NOT-for-github/Buddy_Games_Day_Task_Spec_and_Marking_Guide_v1.docx (teacher folder — not on the website) | Yours. The item map and the marking guide. |
After the lesson
Part A is half a folio. It is not reported on its own and it is not marked yet.
- Read the folios into the three piles described on the Summarise tab. Do not grade.
- Keep the cleaned team data files from Games Day — Part B depends on them being distributed and openable before Lesson 15.
- The newsletter stimulus for B6 needs the class’s real Games Day figures dropped into it. It only works if students recognise the numbers as their own.
- Moderate with the Year 6 team using A7 responses first, once Part B is in. Bring two folios you are confident about and one you are not.
Where Part A sits in the achievement standard
A1 to A3 evidence “assign probabilities as fractions, decimals and percentages”. A5 evidences “conduct simulations using digital tools”. A6 evidences “compare observed frequencies to expected”. A4 is the procedural bridge between the two.
What Part A does not evidence is anything in the statistics half of the standard — comparing distributions and critiquing statistics in the media. That is the whole of Part B, and it is why the folio is split rather than the probability half being reported on its own.
Australian Curriculum content descriptions and achievement standard extracts © ACARA 2010–present, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Standard elaborations material © State of Queensland (QCAA) 2025, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Neither ACARA nor QCAA endorses this material.