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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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?

8. 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

9. 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

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

11. 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.

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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