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Less marking, more feedback

I have a confession to make: for a large part of my career I disliked, dreaded, and often flagrantly avoided marking books. My trusty trolley often stayed in the car all weekend or, when brought into the house, it sat there as a conspicuous reminder that I should be working. Even when I did eventually start on ‘the pile’, I often felt that my comments were repetitive and, at worst, were simply an attempt to get through the set as quickly as possible, rather than actually give effective feedback. This whole process left me wracked with guilt: I desperately wanted to help pupils to improve, but I couldn’t seem to be able to bring myself to do it.

Fortunately, last year my head teacher recommended “Making Every Lesson Count” by Shaun Allison and Andy Tharby. While reading the chapter on feedback, I came across a section named “What is the quickest way of speeding up my marking?” and, to put it bluntly, my mind was blown. What struck me most was that this chapter was titled "Feedback" rather than "Marking". 

Allison and Tharby advocate verbal marking, whole class feedback and ‘number marking’ (see below) as means of giving effective feedback while still balancing workload. Over the last year, my school has focused on two of these methods: whole class feedback and “number marking”. What I love about both of these methods is that they focus on feedback rather than the mechanical process of marking.


Whole class feedback or “The Five Minute Flick”:
At the end of each lesson, I check through a sample of my class’ books, putting together a list of common “what went wells”, “how to improves” and important SPaG errors. I store these in a document for each class and then spend around 5 minutes at the beginning of each lesson going through the feedback and addressing any common misconceptions. Pupils are then expected to go through their work from the previous lessons; adding, redrafting or writing out spellings.

This has become an integral part of my practice for three main reasons:

-          I find checking a sample makes tracking pupils’ comprehension and progress much more manageable. I can easily check through four sets of books in just over an hour and I am able to comfortably check 15 classes worth of books on a lesson to lesson basis.
-          As this form of feedback forces me to record my observations, I find that I spot trends much more easily, both across classes in one lesson and across topics or terms.
-          I regularly and publically praise those pupils who have done well. I also have a slot available at the beginning of each lesson to reteach concepts or provide models to the entire class. Equally, I can focus on any individuals who I have identified as needing extra explanation.

Number marking:
Roughly twice a term, all pupils also complete “marked tasks”; tasks with a mark scheme which are set across the department and which are marked and moderated. Most of the time I mark these tasks using number or symbol marking; each pupil is given two (or more) numbers which represent their “what went well” and “how to improve”. The corresponding comments are then displayed on the board and pupils use them to redraft their work.

Along with the same advantages as whole class feedback, this method comes with added benefits:

-          Rather than making my marking less personal, knowing that I don’t have to write lengthy comments at the end of pupils’ work has encouraged me to annotate pupils’ work in much more depth. I find that, rather than writing comments which are either overly generic or too specific to improve the piece of work as a whole, the small (often one word) comments encourage pupils to improve their work in a much more meaningful way.
-          Openly recognising that pupils share similar strengths and weaknesses seems to make pupils much more willing to ask questions and engage in discussion about the work.
-          As I save a significant amount of time which I would have spent handwriting comments, my “what went wells” and “how to improves” are now much more in depth, often including a sentence starter or a model to demonstrate how pupils should improve.

I have no intention of packing up my red pens any time soon. However, as my head of department so eloquently put in her blog (link below), I believe I am now well and truly in “marking rehab”. These methods have forced me to think about the quality of my feedback, rather than its mere existence. My marking malaise has disappeared and, while my pupils’ books may contain less red pen, I feel that my feedback is more effective and regular than ever before.


http://www.novahreodacademy.org.uk/Teaching-Learning-Blog/ArtMID/913/ArticleID/398/Marking-Rehab-%E2%80%93-from-appearance-to-impact

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