Marking, Feedback and Presentation Policy

Marking, Feedback and Presentation Policy

“The successes and failure of my students’ learning is about what I do or don’t do.”

Professor John Hattie Visible Learning, 2012

We believe feedback and marking is one of the most crucial forms of assessment there is, and one of the greatest factors of pupil progress, bridging the gap between current and future achievement. It enables us to make informed, quality judgements about our effectiveness as teachers, whilst making strategic decisions about the pupil’s Next Steps. Most importantly, it provides timely opportunity to share these ‘Next Steps’ with the pupils and put them in the driving seat of their learning. Through a partnership of verbal learning conversations, quality teacher marking and self/peer marking, every child at Park Hill Primary School will receive daily, constructive feedback, personalised to their learning needs. Our feedback and marking willchampion the successes, and provide concise and constructive commentsso that the children know what they need to do to improve and can use modelled strategies and prompts to do so.

Our Principles

“Praise can make pupil feel good, but it does not help their learning unless it is explicit about what the pupil has done well.”

James, M. (2002) Assessment for Learning: what is it and what does research say about it?

Marking and feedback should:

provide the children with the opportunity to reflect upon their learning and use this to impact their future work.

be seen by children and adults as a positive and powerful tool for improving learning and progress.

be manageable for teachers to ensure that the learning conversation, in either oral or written form, is both purposeful and of a high quality.

relate to the Learning Objective, specifying what has been a strength and then relate directly to the Success Criteria to ‘sign-post’ what they need to do to improve and ‘how’ to do it.

involve all adults, including teaching assistants, who are working within the classroom.

give recognition and appropriate praise for achievement, stating ‘why’they have been successful.

give clear strategies for improvement: reminder prompt, scaffold prompt, or example prompt.

plan for dedicated reflection and improvement time for children to read, reflect and respond to marking.

respond to individual learning needs, incorporating learning conversation marking during the lesson, re-shaping learning as and when necessary, or take place discretely, after the lesson.

inform future planning and individual target setting so that each next lesson builds upon the progress of the previous one.

be highly accessible to children through the consistent use of marking and presentation codes.

Consistent Practice and Procedures

Stationary

All marking is in PURPLE pen, as it clearly contrasts to the pupil’s work.

Pupils will Peer Assess and Self-Edit using a green pen.

Gold, Silver and Bronze stickers will highlight the challenge of work a pupil has chosen. ‘Challenge’ stickers will highlight those extending their learning above the ‘Gold’ challenge.

‘House Point’ stamps will be used to promote positive behaviour for learning and champion successes.

Coded Marking

Making explicit…“Is this what I’m looking for in this piece of work?”

The Marking and Presentation Codes(See Figure 1) will be used to clearly sign-post both progress and presentation, making it easily identifiable with pupils. Presentation will be marked relative to the child.

The Learning Objective achievement codes will be written next to the Learning Objective, highlighting pupils’ achievement during the lesson.

Pupils will Self-Assess (See Figure 2) against the Learning Objective to evaluate their achievement.

All work is identified as being independent except where stated otherwise. In this case, additional codes will be used (See Figure 3).

Figure 1: Marking and Presentation Codes.

Figure 2: Self-Assessment codes.

Figure 3: Additional codes.

Layered Learning:

At Park Hill Primary School, we feel it is important that children help lead their learning. We have developed Layered Learning so children have ownership of the learning, and know and can articulate when they need further challenge, and when they need greater support. Gold, Silver and Bronze stickers illustrate challenge in Maths and English Books. In KS1, differentiated work is allocated to the children until there are mature enough to make the choices themselves. In KS2, it is expected that children choose their level of work, and are encouraged to move between levels when necessary. A Platinum challenge is provided for those children working above ‘Gold’ level.

Acknowledgement marking (including verbal feedback)

Focus: To ensure that all work and achievements are acknowledged through the use of:

• whole-school marking code.
• presentation code.
• verbal feedback marking within the lesson identified with the verbal feedback letter (D - Discussion).

Verbal Feedback

Park Hill Primary School recognises the importance of children receiving regular verbal feedback. The adult will initially talk to the pupil about how they have met the Learning Objective, and then question the pupil about a specific part of the work. This may be to correct a pupil’s understanding, or to extend the pupil’s learning. The work will then be initialled ‘D’ as illustrated in the marking guidelines.

Verbal feedback and support should be given within the lesson to address misconceptions and to extend learning where possible.

Pupils of all ages need verbal feedback, but this is particularly important in the Early Years and KS1 where pupils may be unable to read a written comment.

In EYFS, the teachers focus on giving verbal feedback to the pupil but there will be opportunities to write a comment with the pupil. Staff will also annotate the work as part of the process of gathering information for the EYFSP. This can carry on into KS1 in some instances in that it is expected that pupils will often have work marked with them rather than away from them. Teachers will use the ‘D’ for verbal feedback symbol and will use opportunities to record elements of the learning conversation.

Quality teacher Next Step marking:Rich formative assessment to ‘close the gap’ or extend

Focus: To clearly indicate what has been successful about a piece of work/ learning activity and why this is good. It will also indicate what is not so good and how the work could be improved, in the form of Next Steps. Effective formative feedback will affect what both the children and the teacher do next.

This will be achieved through:

• one positive comment relating specifically to the Success Criteria and/ or Learning Objective.
• one‘Next Step’ prompt relating to the lesson’s Success Criteria or future learning.

Quality marking by students:

Self-evaluation:

•Use plenaries and mini-plenaries to give pupils the opportunity to see if they have met the Success Criteria at their appropriate level.

•Pupils will record their understanding using smiley faces against the Learning Objective (see Figure 2).

•Editing and improvements after evaluation will be done in green pen to highlight the impact of self-evaluation (see Figure 3) and initial E.

Peer Marking:

•Pupils need to be trained to do this through modelling.

•Classes need to agree and adhere to ground rules.

•Pupils need to evaluate against Success Criteria using green pen and initial PM.

•Where appropriate, ‘a star and a wish’ format will be used during Peer Marking.

Where appropriate children should initial marking to show they have read it and are involved in moving their learning forward.

Spelling and Grammar

Incorrect spellings may not always be corrected.

Only:

topic-related technical vocabulary,

high frequency words,

The correct spelling will be written at the bottom of the pupil’s task next to the initial Sp, and will be copied three times.

Inaccurate use of grammar will be corrected and modelled to children.

Frequency of Marking

All work must be marked. Teacher’s professional judgement will be used to identify how often in-depth marking takes place. This is dependent upon the task and need of the child, but it should reflect the child’s self-evaluation; if a pupil feels they have found a task difficult or easy (AFL trays), next steps will help support and extend their learning and their progress.

• Maths

Corrections and number formations will be addressed daily.

A positive comment each day will highlight achievements related to the Learning Objective and Success Criteria.

Next Steps marking will provide an example to confirm understanding, or provide an application question of the skill or strategy.

Next Steps questions should not replace plenaries or mental/oral starters, but extend understanding beyond the teaching sequence.

Marking and Presentation codes will be used.

-Presentation within Maths books

• KS1 – The Learning Objective and Date will be written in the top left corner. It is expected that children write this.
• KS2 –Each page will be folded in half, with the date and Learning Objective in the top left corner.

-Throughout the school, 1cm2 squared books will be used, and children will be encouraged to write one digit per square. There should not be an overreliance on worksheets, and independence is encouraged where possible.

• English

Corrections and spelling errors(a maximum of three) will be addressed daily.

A positive comment each day will highlight achievements related to the Learning Objective and Success Criteria.

Next Steps marking will provide an example to confirm understanding, or provide an application of the skill.

Every extended piece of writing will be marked against a Success Criteria. The Success Criteria will be built up from the skills taught in the teaching sequence prior to the writing task and will be glued underneath the Learning Objective. The SC will be highlighted Bronze, Silver and Gold, with a column for Teacher Assessment. Where appropriate, a ‘Self-Assessment’ and/or ‘Peer Assessment’ may be added.

• Literacy Skills

All work will be ‘stamped’ to acknowledge the children’s achievements.

Corrections will be addressed.

Peer and Self marking will be used wherever possible.

Foundation Subjects

All foundation subjects will be marked using the marking policy.

A positive comment each day will highlight achievements related to the Learning Objective and Success Criteria.

Within each Topic termly teaching sequence, children will have at least three pieces of work that has been ‘Next Step’ teacher marked.

• In particular, this will be for pieces, which link directly to a cross curricular English or maths focus or a piece of work, which demonstrates an aspect of key learning from the Topic’s curriculum objectives.

In general, work will be marked to the Learning Objective and Success Criteria. However, it is good practice to give regard to Literacy Skills in some pieces, to ensure skills are being transferred across the curriculum.

Pupils will respond to Next Steps marking with their pencil/ pen. All Next Steps, Corrections and spelling work must be marked by an adult.

Park Hill Primary School

Marking Policy Reviewed July 2017