Courses
Six courses, between sixteen and twenty-eight hours each. Every syllabus below is the one that is taught, published in full before anybody enrols, together with the hours and the way the work is assessed.
All six are studied online from recorded lessons with written handouts, at your own pace inside the window of an intake, and all six end with a certificate of completion. They can be taken in any order, although reading a table first makes the other five shorter.
Reading a Table
What a table is actually claiming: what one row counts, what one column measures, and how to tell when the figure you want is not the figure that was printed.
Who it is written for
Anyone handed tables at work, in a letter or in a report, who has to say something about them out loud and would rather be right.
Syllabus
- The anatomy of a table: header row, unit line, and the footnote nobody reads
- What a single row counts, written out as one sentence before anything else
- Units and scales: thousands, shares, rates, and the mixture of all three
- Totals, subtotals, and the rows that quietly count the same thing twice
- Empty cells: missing, zero, and never collected are three different things
- Where a figure came from: source, period, and whether it was revised later
- Comparing two tables that were built by two different people
- Writing three sentences about a table that a reader can rely on
How the work is assessed
Three short written readings of supplied tables, each returned with line-by-line comments from a tutor.
Percentages in Everyday Use
The arithmetic behind every figure quoted as a share: which whole the share was taken from, and why two of them cannot simply be added together.
Who it is written for
People who can already work out a percentage on a calculator and want to know which percentage is the one worth working out.
Syllabus
- Per cent as a fraction with the denominator held still
- The base question: a share of what, exactly, and counted when
- Increase and decrease, and the reason they do not cancel each other out
- Percentage points against per cent, the confusion that reverses conclusions
- Two changes one after another, and the order they were applied in
- Working backwards: recovering the figure as it stood before a change
- Rates quoted by month and by year, put on the same footing
- The estimate you make in your head before you touch the keypad
How the work is assessed
Two graded problem sets built on published statistics, plus one short written explanation of a single result in plain language.
Basic Probability
What a probability is - a proportion of cases over a defined set, and nothing more - how to read one out of a forecast or a test result, and the two mistakes almost everybody makes with them.
Who it is written for
People who meet stated probabilities in forecasts, quality checks and health information, and would like to read them without either fear or credulity.
Syllabus
- A probability as a proportion of cases, always over a set you can describe
- Frequencies instead of decimals: reading 'one in two hundred' out loud
- Independent events, and why a past run says nothing about the next one
- Adding and multiplying: which of the two the question is asking for
- Conditional probability, worked through a screening result end to end
- False positives: why an accurate test still surprises the person reading it
- Small samples swing: what a proportion out of twelve observations is worth
- Expected frequency over many repetitions, and what it does not say about one
- How a published forecast is scored afterwards against what happened
How the work is assessed
Nine marked problems against a published rubric, plus one written explanation of a screening result addressed to a non-technical reader.
A Spreadsheet from Scratch
Building a usable sheet starting from an empty one: one fact per row, a column that means exactly one thing, and a total you are able to prove twice.
Who it is written for
People who have only ever inherited somebody else's spreadsheet, and want to build one that still makes sense when it is reopened in six months.
Syllabus
- What belongs in a cell, and what belongs in a note beside it
- One fact per row: the shape that makes everything afterwards possible
- Naming columns so that the sheet explains itself without you
- The first formula, typed and understood rather than copied from a page
- Sums, counts and averages, and which of the three misleads you first
- References that survive a row being inserted above them
- Sorting and filtering without scrambling which value belongs to which row
- Checking a total by a second, independent route
- Dates and text that arrive as the wrong kind of thing entirely
- Saving, naming and keeping the version that still worked
How the work is assessed
Two graded exercises on real, messy sample files, plus a final workbook built from scratch and reviewed by a tutor.
Charts That Do Not Mislead
Reading a chart for what it actually shows, and building one that does not flatter whoever produced it.
Who it is written for
Anyone who has to put a figure in front of other people, or decide whether a chart inside a document deserves to be believed.
Syllabus
- One question per chart, decided before any shape is chosen
- Which shape answers which question: over time, between groups, of a whole
- The axis that does not start at zero, and the rare case where that is honest
- Length, area, and the exaggeration hidden inside a scaled picture
- Two vertical axes, and the relationship they appear to manufacture
- Ordering categories on purpose instead of alphabetically by accident
- Labels that carry the unit, the period and the source without being asked
- Removing decoration until only the data is left standing
How the work is assessed
Four written critiques of supplied charts and two charts of your own, all returned with comments.
Checking a Bill Line by Line
The routine that turns a statement from something you file into something you have verified: recompute the line, check the rate, and query the difference in writing.
Who it is written for
People who would rather check a household or small-office statement themselves than assume that whoever issued it did the arithmetic correctly.
Syllabus
- The anatomy of a statement: period, reading, rate, line, total
- Recomputing one line from the quantity and the rate on its own
- Rounding, and the gap between a rounded line and a rounded total
- Charges calculated on other charges, and the order that decides the result
- Reading a meter or a counter, and comparing two periods fairly
- Estimating the order of magnitude before touching a calculator at all
- When it does not agree: writing the query in five sentences
How the work is assessed
Six checking exercises on sample statements, plus one written query drafted from a discrepancy you find yourself.
How the hours are counted
The stated hours cover the recorded lessons, the reading and the exercises together — not the running time of the video alone. They are an estimate for somebody meeting the material for the first time; a person already comfortable with part of a syllabus will spend less, and nobody is measured against the number.
What every course includes
- Recorded lessons of twelve to eighteen minutes, with subtitles and transcripts.
- A written handout for every lesson, carrying the same worked examples.
- Exercises on published tables and real exported files, each with a worked solution.
- Written questions answered by a tutor within a few business days.
- Graded exercises returned with comments.
- A certificate of completion at the end.
What no course includes
None of these courses is a regulated qualification, a licence, or preparation for a particular state examination. None of them carries a placement service, an introduction to an employer, or any statement about pay. None of them teaches a system for predicting an outcome: the probability course is about reading a stated proportion and reasoning about independent events, and it says so in its own first lesson. A course teaches how to read and check a figure, and certifies that the work was done; the rest is not a school's to give.
Enrolment
Enrolment is arranged in writing. Send a note to contact@peatbogtopography.online naming the course, and the current schedule and conditions are sent back before anything is agreed. There is no enrolment form on this site and no payment is handled through it.