SHOBDONPRIMARY SCHOOL

Marking Policy and Practice

Rationale

The rationale behind this policy is 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.

Purpose

The purpose of the marking is:

  • To recognise those areas of school work that are good and to improve upon them
  • A means of giving encouragement towards producing work at an acceptable, yet challenging level
  • To indicate to children what happens next and what improvements can be made to ensure progression
  • To check for standards, individually and within the class
  • To determine whether a child can work within set time limits or targets
  • To measure the school’s progress against national standards

Principles

At Shobdon Primary School we recognise that marking is an important part of the learning and assessment cycle and that continuity of approach throughout the school is of utmost importance.

Aims

  • To show that children’s work is valued by the teacher.
  • To support children through correction, without loss of self-esteem.
  • To encourage children to reflect on their work; to look for good points and for areas of improvement.
  • To ensure that there is an opportunity for a shared and supportive experience between the teacher and the child.
  • To ensure opportunities for self and paired marking and appraisal in response to the use of success criteria.

To develop

  • Accuracy
  • Clarity of thought and expression
  • Depth of understanding
  • The ability to keep on task
  • Organisational skills
  • Neatness, legibility and other presentational skills
  • The ability to check, redraft and improve their own work

Practice

At Shobdon School we recognise that oral and written marking are equally valuable practices depending upon the circumstances of their use.

Oral feedback is most powerful and has maximum impact when pointing out successes and improvement needs against the learning intentions. The quality of thinking can be higher if it is oral.

Where appropriate, practicable and possible, work should be discussed and marked in the presence of the child.

In KS2 the teacher should provide opportunities for pupils to collaboratively set marking criteria prior to a task. Marking criteria (learning objectives) should be made clear to the pupils before the work commences. Criteria should be achievable. The targets need to be identified and noted by the teacher.

Marking should be selective, both in terms of what needs highlighting for individuals and what is appropriate for them, acknowledging personal achievement and effort.

Feedback should be constructive, containing helpful or encouraging comments as appropriate and relate to set learning criteria or school expectations for handwriting, spelling, punctuation and syntax.

Written comments should be in appropriate language, legible and be placed where they can clearly be seen.

Pupils should be given time to respond to oral and written comments. The teacher should ensure that these have been addressed before new work is begun.

Marking of work should be done in GREEN.

  • Agreed marking annotations should be used in Key Stage 2.
  • In Key Stage 1, these are used at teacher’s discretion.

Peer marking should be a regular activity with the children to involve them in their own marking and that of their peers.

Purple Polishing

Children should have the opportunity to review and respond to the marking and make their own corrections. ‘Purple Polishing’ pens should be used when appropriate to the year group.

The use of house points, stamps, smiling faces and stickers are used as effective tools in the marking process.

Work that is being marked for assessment purposes may be marked differently from normal class work. Assessments may be to establish levels of understanding following specific guidelines, to monitor pupil progress or for diagnostic purposes.

Maths marking

It is important for teachers to distinguish between a pupil’s simple slip and an error that reflects lack of understanding:

  • For slips it is enough to indicate where the slip occurs and the pupil is encouraged to correct it.
  • If errors demonstrate a lack of understanding, the teacher may decide to take alternative courses of action and errors will be addressed in the following lesson.

Good interaction between teachers and pupils ensures that efficient marking strategies are employed.

It is not a routine expectation that next steps or targets be written into pupils’ books. The next lesson should be designed to take account of next steps.

Marking symbols

WALT: We are learning to…

WWW: What went well…

EBI: even better if…

Sp ~~~~ underlining incorrect spelling

O missing or incorrect punctuation

^ omitted words or letters

// new paragraph/new line in dialogue or poetry

T / V teacher or verbal feedback given

S supported work Teaching Assistant to initial when they have marked

work

√√ positive elements often linked to lesson objective

next steps to move learning forward or for improving an aspect of the

work

This policy has been reviewed with due regard to the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) review of the current evidence on approaches to written marking commonly used in English Primary Schools and the report of the Independent Teacher Workload Review Group ‘Eliminating unnecessary workload around marking.’ (March 2016) and the NCETM Marking and Evidence Guidance for Primary Mathematics.

Policy Written: March 2017 Review: March 2019

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ShobdonPrimary School Marking Policy