Why Do We Mark Children's Work and What Should Marking Achieve

Long Whatton CE Primary School

‘Learning and Growing together’

Marking and Feedback Policy

November 2014

Why do we mark children's work and what should marking achieve?

Through our marking policy we aim to;

• Celebrate success and raise self esteem.

• Give relevant and useful feedback to children.

• Let pupils know what they need to do next and set targets for further
• improvement.

• Determine levels of achievement and attainment for groups and individuals.

• Determine learning trends for groups and individuals.

• Inform our short term plans.

• Back up personal judgements.

• Continue the process of formative assessment.

• Engage in a progressive and constructive process of correction.

• Check coverage.

• Inform against national curriculum and other national criteria.

In the EYFS and with very young children most feedback and marking will be verbal or visual, but as children progress there should be clear guidance form the teacher that enables pupils to know where they are, how they are doing and why and what they need to do next.

Our marking should demonstrate the following characteristics

Be applied consistently and purposefully.

Allow pupils to retain ownership.

Promote a mutual respect and a partnership in working.

Involve the pupil wherever possible.

Be based upon criteria shared with the child.

Encourage the skill of self correction and checking.

Use positive comments whenever possible and when deserved.

Acknowledge all work appropriately.

Be understandable by the children.

Be sensitive to the development of the child.

Be written neatly.

Be unintrusive.

Allow some self marking of their own and each others work.

Involve support staff.

Be appropriate to each year group.

Encourage the children to have high expectations of themselves.

Suggest targets for improvement and set clear goals.

General guidelines

No pages are to be removed, but a comment made if required.

Time taken may also be indicated on the work.

Children may be asked to repeat unsatisfactory or unfinished work at home or at break time.

Written Work

Spelling

Identify only those words appropruate to the child’s level of spelling and then only 2 or 3 words per piece of writing.

Underline some or all of the word.

Write the word out using say look cover write and check.

Look back at previous work or on a display to find a word.

Possible comments or next steps at the end of the work.

Write above or below child's writing. (scribe)

Directed to check in a dictionary. (year 2)

Try paper – acknowledge all the correct letters and prompt the child to work out what the others should be.

Handwriting

One to one observation of the correct formation of letters.

Arrows to indicate the child needs to keep writing on the line.

Written comments and suggestions.

Practice a line of letters.

Punctuation

Verbal and use as teaching point.

Mark in with the child as appropriate.

Good phrase or use of vocabulary

Comment at the bottom of the work.

Stars stickers smiley faces etc.

Verbal recognition and use as teaching point.

Tick or good next to the appropriate words.

Marks or grades for work or tests may also be used.

Significant achievements are recognised by comments, stars, stickers, certificates etc.

Punctuation errors may be written in where appropriate but effort should

be made to discuss this with the child.

Positive aspects, such as good use of vocabulary, interesting phrases, neat work should be indicated on the child's work and used as teaching points where appropriate.

A tick indicates to the child that the work has been seen and acknowledged and is not necessarily an indicator of level of good achievement.

Teachers can also use learning walls, steps to success booklets and wall charts that indicate progress and achievement where it is considered appropriate.

Mathematical development

EYFS/Year 1: Mostlyverbal feedback at the time with appropriate praise and reward.

Draw children’s attention to any tragets on wall.

Working out

Reception/Year 1 do not usually show formal working out.

Year 2 mainly verbal marking and working through with the child with next steps indicated.

KS2

Good or poor organisation is indicated by a smiley face, a comment or possibly a request to repeat work.

Significant achievements are acknowledged by the use of a range of stickers, stars and certificates etc.

It is important that children can organise their mathematical work.

•All squared paper and book work is headed with the title/page reference an appropriate version of the date.

•A space is left underneath this before work commences.

•Questions are numbered appropriately and well spaced out

This is begun in year 2 and continued through out KS2.

Investigations may be marked by verbal feedback or written comment or further questions attached to the work, for example on stick-its.

3D work is acknowledged in the same way.

Examples of achievement should be shared with others as teaching points.

Oral feedback shared with a class is of benefit to all.

Knowledge and Understanding of the world

Verbal or written comments on how well the learning objective have been achieved should be made to the children at the end of a piece of work or verbally.

The value of group or class feedback especially in science should not be underrated.

Written feedback should be made in books using the following system:

• Green comments indicate the work has been seen (green for seen)
• Pink comments indicate something that the learner must try to do next time (pink for think)
• Children are expected to acknowledge teachers comments by initialling and as they progress through the school, by adding a comment of their own.
• Blue Comments added Autumn 2014 (blue for you) You need to…
• Teachers should check back to the pink comments after each piece of work to ensure children are acting upon them.
• We ultimately want to see a dialogue between pupils and teachers about their learning, as children become increasingly responsible and proactive.

Long Whatton Staff October 2014