April 2017

Review :April 2018

Feedback and Marking Policy

Introduction

This policy has been written for all stakeholders and visitors to the school. The foundation of the policy was formulated by teaching staff during a Staff Inset session on assessmentand before going to print this document has been reviewed by a number of stakeholders including: staff, governors, children and parents.

Rationale

To ensure that all children have their work marked in such a way that it is likely to improve their learning, develop their self-confidence, raise self-esteem and provide opportunities for self-assessment and peer-assessment.

As a result of this policy there will be greater consistency in the way that children’s work is marked across the Key Stages and subject areas.

Purposes

The purpose of the marking is:

  • To recognise and celebrate good work and progress
  • To feedback how successful the children have been in achieving the learning objectives set within the lesson
  • To directly inform teaching and learning (planning/differentiation)
  • To identify areas for improvement to ensure progress over time.
  • To identify individuals (or groups of individuals) in need of focussed intervention
  • A means of giving encouragement towards producing work at an accessible, yet challenging level.
  • To indicate to children what their next steps in their learning
  • To check standards, individually and within the class.
  • To determine whether a child can work within set time limits or targets.
  • To measure the schools’ progress against the standards set out in the 2014 national curriculum.

Principles

Marking of children’s work can have different roles and purposes at different times and can involve both written and verbal feedback.

  • Whenever appropriate/ possible, teachers should provide individual verbal feedback to children at the point of learning
  • Teachers will provide each child with a clear learning objective and differentiated success criteria that makes it explicit what is expected of them/what they need to do to be successful. These will be in the form of ‘I can’ statements and will be highlighted using our consistent school colour scheme (outlined in the appendix) to clearly feed back to children.
  • The marking of children’s work, either written or verbal, should be regular and frequent.
  • Teachers should look for strengths before identifying improvements when marking work.
  • Marking should be linked to learning intentions/ success criteria/ targets.
  • Marking procedures and marking standards should be consistently applied across the key stage/subject area/ school.
  • The marking criteria should be displayed in the front of each child’s Maths and English book and children should understand the meaning of the marks/ marking they receive.
  • Children should be trained in marking, self-evaluation and peer assessment and be given opportunities to mark their own and others’ work, to make improvements and to act upon the suggestions made.
  • Marking practices and procedures should be in keeping with the school’s policy on Assessment.
  • Learning walls should be highlighted in individual books to help children understand what they have achieved and their next steps to further progress – these should then be used to inform judgements concerning progress over time and to inform teacher records and reports

Guidelines

The following procedures for correcting and improving children’s work should be implemented by all staff:

  • Feedback and marking needs to be oral and/or written according to the ability/age of the child.
  • Children’s work should be marked as soon as possible after completion and, if possible, in the presence of the child.
  • Work should be corrected according to the curriculum focus,being assessed, as a priority
  • Spelling, grammar and punctuation should also be looked at in all subjects to embed the principles of writing across the curriculum
  • When correcting a piece of work the procedures on the attached sheet, entitled Marking Procedure should be implemented.
  • If children make a neat copy of their work after it has been corrected, originals may be kept to show parents as an indication of the child’s true progress.
  • Effective feedback needs planned time for children to make improvements/response, but it is most powerful when included in the fabric of a lesson (e.g. after 10 mins look for a success, after another 5 mins look for an improvement etc.)
  • When appropriate, a brief improvement suggestion should be made, following the format of a scaffold, example or reminder prompt. This comment should be informative (ie. not just good, excellent, etc) and linked to the learning intention.
  • The children should respond in green pen to clearly evidence a response to marking.

Marking

  • In a skills lesson the teacher should provide effective “there and then” feedback.
  • When distance marking a skills lesson the marker may focus on one group of children’s work at a time and suggest improvements to be fed back to that particular group. Other work may be acknowledged by a tick.
  • All children in the class will be given opportunities to analyse, self-assess and to make improvements to their own work using the differentiated success criteria given to them.
  • If the focus group was of mixed ability then a variety of misconceptions and suggested improvements can be made, for the advantage of all.

When children are applying their knowledge:

  • The work should be read by the marker and marked against the shared success criteria/ key features.
  • The marker should annotate or adjust their planningwith successes and misconceptions; made by different ability groups. These will be used as teaching points and suggestions for improvements to be made.
  • Time to make improvements to work will be built into lesson time and based on any marking and assessment that has taken place (teacher, peer, self).

Marking Open and Closed Skills

The closed skills are easily evidenced; the work is either correct or incorrect and marked accordingly.

The open skill requires more analysis and improvements can be suggested whilst giving “on the spot” feedback/marking.

Closed Skill / Open Skill
  • Write sentences containing direct speech.
  • Use a multiplication grid.
/
  • Draw together a conclusion.
  • Describe a setting.

Self-evaluation/Peer Assessment

  • Children should be trained in the process of high quality self-evaluation/peer assessment, based on success measured against shared success criteria and suggesting improvements.
  • Children should agree some “golden rules” of response partner/ peer assessment/ feedback work, to safe guard self esteem.
  • Feedback/peer assessment can be oral or written according to the ability/age of the child.
  • Children should be trained to give an improvement suggestion.
  • Children should be given time and opportunity to act upon suggestions.
  • The quality of the improvement suggestions and of the peer assessment should be monitored by the teacher. In the case of peer assessment, the marker’s name should be noted on the work.

Monitoring and Evaluation

Members of the Leadership Team will review samples of work from each class to monitor the implementation of this policy. An analysis will be made and feedback given to staff.

The desired outcomes for this policy are improvement in children’s learning and greater clarity amongst children and parents concerning children’s achievements and progress.

The performance indicators will be:

  • An improvement in children’s attainment,
  • Teacher, child and parent testimony concerning the usefulness of the marking system.
  • Consistency in teacher’s marking across the two key stages and between year groups.
  • An awareness on the part of the pupils of what is expected of them.

Special Educational Needs

  • All children’s work will be marked and assessed and progress will be monitored.
  • The work of children with IEP’s will be marked in keeping with the Marking Procedure.
  • Children will receive verbal or written feedback in accordance with their ability.
  • Children should be encouraged to recognise their successes and to look for how improvements can be made in their own work. They should be given time to act upon improvements.

Equal Opportunities

The Feedback and Marking Policy and Marking Procedure, encourages the practice of inclusion for all.

Signed: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………

Chair of Governors

On behalf of the Governing Body

Dated: ………………………………………………………………………………………….

Appendix

English and foundation subjects

=met the success criteria/good examples of work

= partially met the success criteria

= not met the success criteria/error in work

siad = a misspelled word and then written correctly in the margin for you to

copy

= things you have done well

= what you should try to do next time

Remember to respond in green pen.

T = target for a unit

S = support

vf = verbal feedback

English Books

In our English books, you will find a ‘cold’ write indicated by a sticker. The children complete a cold write at the beginning of a unit with no prior teaching or guidance; this is to help the teacher understand what each child is capable of and what they need to learn to make further progress.

The teacher sets each child targets for the unit.

You will also find a learning wall at the beginning of a unit that outlines what the children are aiming to achieve. These are highlighted and dated (using the marking policy above) to clearly indicate to the children how successful they have been at achieving the objectives.

At the end of a unit, in order to show progress, the children then complete a ‘hot’ write, indicated by a hot write sticker. Children’s progress is checked against their targets from the cold write.

Children also complete a SPAG test at the beginning and end of a term and this is analysed and informs staff of the children’s next steps, which they plan into starters and lessons. The results of these tests are recorded on a spreadsheet and the tests are filed.

Maths

In our maths books, you will find at the beginning of each unit a ‘cold’ test labelled ‘L’ The children complete these tests with no prior teaching or guidance to help the teachers understand what the children are capable of and what they need to do in order to make further progress. Half of the ‘L’ test is based on previous year group objectives and the other half from current year group objectives.

The children then engage in lessons that support their learning on the individual objectives of the unit. You will find a learning wall at the beginning of each maths unit that outlines what the children are aiming to achieve. These are highlighted and dated (using the marking policy above) to clearly indicate to the children how successful they’ve been at achieving the objectives.

At the end of a unit, in order to show progress, the children then either repeat the L test or take a harder M test which is made entirely of the current year group objectives.

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