Marking Less to Achieve More Making sure marking helps children to learn

What Teachers Hate About Traditional Marking It is extremely time consuming It’s boring and repetitive Worst of all it has little or no effect The Marking Dilemma Feel pressure to correct all spelling errors Provide a mark Provide comments Satisfaction of having been seen to do a thorough job

Problems with Corrections and Comments Marking too many aspects of a piece of work Making too many general and unfocused comments Marking away from the classroom Marks alone do not improve achievement. Allowing little or no time for children to read or follow up on comments

Three Strategies Teachers Use to Mark Less and Achieve More Do more marking with the whole class Do less marking yourself away from pupils When you do mark make sure that it counts

What Does More Marking with the Whole Class Look Like? Modelling – a specific example of a learner’s work can help pupils practise and improve their own work In work that has only one right answer e.g. sums and spelling children can find their own mistakes and make their own corrections. They will need guidance in where to look for the wrong answers Targets and prompts to focus on the important points and aid them in marking their own work

How do Teachers do Less Marking Away from Pupils Classroom situations are created to allow teachers to give immediate verbal feedback or short written comments while working with groups or individuals Space in jotters are used to write a prompt A reminder (say more about) A question (can you describe how) An example (offer a choice of words or phrases) Stamps may be used in the jotter to show that this has taken place

Teachers Mark to Make Sure that it Counts Use comment only marking as much as possible and only give marks when necessary Don’t focus on too many things in the one piece of work Corrections and comments put responsibility back onto the pupil who should spend more time responding to the marking Give time to respond to marking in class What does this look like in a jotter?

Highlighters used to show areas of good work and an area for improvement along with a comment on how to improve Three spelling errors pointed out which are easily checked in a dictionary A thinking point concerning speech marks which will be a discussion with the teacher

3. Smiling or frowning face for the teacher to tick in response 1. Target set by the teacher against which the child is judging their work 2. Highlighters used by the child to show the teacher success in reaching their target

Two Stars and a Wish written by the teacher. Could also be by the child.

Dots, crosses, question marks to indicate that a correction is required. Replaced with a curly tick or curly c once the work has been altered.

The teacher has indicated with a red dot that this work has not been understood. This could be for the individual or group The teacher has indicated with a green dot that this work has been understood Children can also indicate how well they have understood the work with a coloured dot

What Will You See in Your Child’s Work A marking code to show that a correction is required but not too many of them and always part of an agreed target Insertions into their work Redrafted piece of work Stampers or stickers to show that they clearly understood the learning

And Finally … Good marking does three things It says specifically what has been done well It identifies what has been less successful It suggests how improvement can be made A good marking comment should refer to the original learning intention and to the target/s set for your child at the outset of the task