Same crews, same cards, same ladder
Six modes
A game that never changes dies in about three weeks. All six of these run off the round cards you already have and the crews you already made, so you never explain a rule set twice. Announce the mode by name at the start of the lesson, and they will tell you they like one better than another. That is the point.
Loud class you have never met: Last One Standing. Class that has to revise for a test: Blind Stake. Class that has gone flat: The Grid. Class where one crew has run away with it: The Chain. Double period or a wet weather day: The Build. Everything else: Stakes.
1. Stakes
The default. Use it two lessons in three.
The core game. Topic, bet, question at the level you bet, steal. Full rules on the game page. Every other mode below is a variation on it, so teach this one properly and the rest take fifteen seconds to explain.
2. The Grid
Best when the room has gone flat
Draw a five by five grid on the board. Columns are five topics from your deck. Rows are point values: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8. Crews take turns picking a square.
- Pick a square, answer it, win the value. Wrong, and the square goes back on the board for anyone.
- Before you start, secretly mark two squares as traps on your own copy. Landing on a trap and getting it right doubles the points. Getting it wrong costs the value instead of one.
- Crews find out a square was a trap only after they have picked it. That is what makes them argue about strategy for the whole lesson.
3. Last One Standing
Best for a loud class or the last fifteen minutes
Rapid fire, no staking, no huddles. You go round the room, one question each, moving fast. Get it wrong and your whole crew sits down. Last crew standing takes the pot, the total of everything staked that lesson so far.
- Use the 1-point tier only. Speed is the game, not difficulty.
- A crew that is out may buy back in once by answering a 5-pointer cold. That keeps the sat-down crews watching instead of talking.
- Ten seconds per answer, and you count it out loud. The count is what makes it feel like a game show.
4. Blind Stake
Best before a test, and best for recycling cards they have already seen
You read the answer. The crew has to produce the question. It sounds like a gimmick and it is the single best revision mode in here, because working backwards from an answer forces them to understand the thing rather than recall it.
- Same staking as normal, but they stake on how confident they are that they can build the question.
- Accept any question that produces that answer. If a crew finds a better question than the one on your card, give them the five and say so.
- Because you are reading answers you already used, one deck lasts twice as long.
5. The Chain
Best when one crew has run away with the ladder
Each crew has to get five in a row correct. Every member has to answer at least one. If anybody in the crew breaks the chain, the crew goes back to zero and starts again. A completed chain is worth 15 points, enough to close almost any gap in one lesson.
- The pressure is entirely inside the crew, so the strong students end up coaching the weak ones properly instead of just answering for them.
- Run it with the 1 and 3 tiers only. A chain of five 5-pointers never completes and the room gives up.
- Watch for a crew leaning on one student. Say "Everyone answers at least once" before you start, not after.
6. The Build
Best for a double period, a wet weather day, or a class with no set work at all
The only mode that produces something. You give every crew the same brief and the same set of facts from a card, they have twenty minutes to build an answer, and then the room votes with the Bank counting.
- Maths: design the cheapest fence for a paddock and show your working.
- English: write the six-word story, or two headlines about the same event from opposite sides.
- Science: design the fair test, name every variable you controlled.
- History and Geography: build the case for one side of an argument using three sources.
- PDHPE: design the warm-up, the training week or the safety plan.
Scoring: 10 points to the winner, 5 to second, and 3 to any crew that finished something. The participation points matter, because a crew that gets nothing for finishing will not finish next time.
The seventh thing, and it is not a mode
Once a term, hand each crew a blank card and have them write a round: the topic, the three tiers with answers, and the steal. Then run their cards next lesson and credit the crew that wrote each one out loud. Writing a good 5-pointer takes more understanding than answering one, and a class that has written the questions argues about the marking instead of about you.