Before you start: have the two-colour counters out, about 30 per group of four. Cubes, buttons, or two colours of pencil dot on paper work the same way. They are used at the tables in the Class Challenge.

Take three hands-up answers, not open call-outs. Let pupils try phrases like "more girls than boys" or "there are more girls". Don't correct or introduce the colon yet — the point is to feel the need for a tidier way of saying it, which the next step gives them.

Say the colon as "two to three" every time so pupils hear the reading.

2:3 boys to girls, class of 30: point at the 2 boy-parts and 3 girl-parts; ties back to 12 boys and 18 girls from the hook.

1:4 teachers to pupils: clearest for bar length. Ask them to eyeball how many times longer the pupils' bar is before you confirm four. Works out as 6 teachers and 24 pupils.

3:5 red to blue counters: build the word part here. Point at one bar, "this is one part, one equal share". Count the red parts (3) and blue parts (5) aloud, add to 8 total in front of them. Slow down, the fraction argument in the last step leans on this 8. The blue bar is longer by two parts. Hold up the same 3 red and 5 blue counters from the tub so the bars and the counters are the same thing.

1:1 the equal split, the key one: ask pupils to predict the bars before the reveal. Same length, fair even split, one part each. This is what they'll come back to.

This round is for talking it through together. Pupils take turns at the board and the class agrees or corrects out loud.

All four stories are built in. Press Next to move to the next one and the bar names change with it, so there is nothing to retype.

For each story, ask the class to read the ratio aloud ("two to one") and to predict which bar will be longer before anyone touches the sliders. Then set the two parts and press Check.

The 1:6 is the planned stretch: the outfield bar is six times the goalkeeper bar, and pupils often under-estimate how much longer that looks. Pause, let them predict, then reveal. Revoice a strong answer: "so one for every six means the second bar is six times as long."

These are the practice questions — pupils take turns building each ratio at their tables, check each one, and the class confirms before moving on. Keep the pace brisk rather than over-explaining. Three two-colour builds keeps this comfortable inside 8 minutes for a mixed-ability group.

Groups of four, one tub of two-colour counters per group. Watch for the classic slip: pupils lay 2:5 as 2 and 5 but then read it as "2 out of 5" (that is the fraction, not the ratio) — head this off by asking "how many altogether?" so they see the whole is 7, not 5. The three-colour 1:3:6 is a genuine stretch: it introduces the brand-new idea of a three-part ratio, which the rest of the lesson does not cover, so treat it as an extension for groups that finish early and are moving well — not a whole-class expectation. The sixes group will be the biggest pile.