New KS3 and 4 NRICH probability resources

A collection of free online resources taking an exciting new approach to the probability strand of the KS3 and 4 Mathematics curriculum has just been published on our NRICH website. Probability is the mathematical study of events which are subject to chance variation. It is an area which many students find difficult - not least because their intuitive understanding often appears to be contradicted by the maths. To help address this problem NRICH has published a collection of free online resources and teacher support material - 'Great Expectations: probability through problems' - offering a new approach to teaching probability for Key Stages 3 and 4. Our rich classroom tasks are based on mathematical models of real world scenarios. Developed in collaboration with David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk at the University of Cambridge, the collection provides a basis for the whole probability curriculum for students up to age 16 and beyond, taking them from their first introduction to probability to independent, dependent and conditional probability. The resources feature a progression which enables students to develop understanding before formalising results mathematically. Students start by exploring a context, collecting data and looking for patterns. They then explore whether the patterns they observe conform to what they would expect to happen. Analysis is grounded in the concept of expectation, with students working with frequencies and recording their data and expected results on tree diagrams and 2-way tables, and then progressing to expressing probabilities as fractions. Find all the free resources at http://nrich.maths.org/probability.