Approach to Marking — Update

A quickie just to say we are 1 month into our new policy (which you can read here) and everything is going extremely well (honestly — I’ll say as we go on when we come into any problems!) Teachers are commenting on not only the reduced workload but also the benefits that they are already seeing in how they organise their next lesson and adapt what they have planned as they move the children on in their learning. It’s way to early to see this translate into results but in another month or two I’ll report back again after a series of ‘book looks’. That will be a key early update!

One tweak was necessary. I felt uncomfortable that some ‘presentation’ was not as you would expect from a few children in different classes — teachers agreed (to be expected at the start of the year) and with nothing in books or in Teaching Journals, it left us a bit open. So rather than add this as a contrived box in our Teaching Journals (which is therefore still 100% focused on learning and next steps), teachers will write a comment or a sad face or see me or whatever they deem necessary in that child’s book to tell the child and show anyone else as well that they are taking the poor quality presentation seriously and doing something about it. They will then put those books in a pile to discuss with the child when they choose.

If you want to read more details about the approach to marking we are taking in our school (it’s basically ‘no comment marking’, please click here).

I have just finished making a mammoth 50 minute video for parents (plus Ofsted and anyone else external) explaining our approach. Why 50 minutes? Because our approach to marking is so closely knitted together with formative assessment, it goes into both areas, going through our school’s ‘all in one Assessment Policy’. You can enjoy 50 minutes of me me me right here.