Community statistics · Maths CAS idea
Help the school library understand its users
Service
Work with the librarian to analyse anonymous loan and visit data and suggest changes to opening hours or stock.
Where the maths comes in
Frequency, time-of-day patterns, proportions and clear presentation.
Which CAS strand it fits
- Service: Unpaid, voluntary work with others that also has a learning benefit for you.
Your CAS coordinator decides how an experience counts at your school. Strand summaries are provisional (our words, being checked).
How to run it
- Ask the librarian what decision they face.
- Agree which anonymous data to look at.
- Analyse and present options.
- Follow up on what changed.
How to evidence it
- The question and data agreement
- Analysis
- Librarian's response
Date everything and keep it in your school's CAS portfolio as you go. More on what counts as evidence.
Reflection prompts
Questions to think about, not answers to copy. Write your reflections in your own words, in whatever form your school accepts.
- How did you turn the librarian's question into something data could answer?
- What could the data not tell you?
- What did you learn about how students use the library?
Learning outcomes this often gives a chance to show
- Collaboration. What did someone else bring that you could not have done alone? Describe a disagreement or a mix-up in the team. How was it resolved?
- Initiative and planning. What did you plan, and what did you have to change once you started? Who did you need to ask for permission or help, and how did you go about it?
- Ethics. What choice in this experience had a right and a wrong way to do it? Whose interests did you have to protect (privacy, safety, fairness), and how?
Whether you meet an outcome depends on what you actually do and reflect on, not on the idea. Outcome labels are our short summaries, being checked.
Safety and ethics
- No individual borrowing records: totals and anonymised data only.
Agree every plan with your CAS coordinator first. Safety and ethics for maths CAS.
Need the statistics? The statistics guide (written for the IA) explains tests and charts step by step. Keep CAS and your IA separate.