Marchbank Free School

RESPONSIBILITY
Policy Title / Marking Policy
Author / Harriet Emmerson
Version / V6
Owned By / EVAT
Date Completed / March 2013 / evaluated January 16 / Summer 16
Date for Revision of policy / Summer 17
APPROVED
Chair / Janet Penman
Chair of Directors / Mr Jim O’Neill
Signed
Contents
Section / Page number
Rationale / 3
Aims / 3
Principals of good marking / 3
Types of Marking / 4
Monitoring and Evaluation / 5
  1. Rationale

We believe that marking should provide constructive feedback to every child, focusing on success and improvement against learning objectives. Marking should help children to become reflective learners and give them strategies to be able to improve their work and take the next steps in their learning. We aim to provide a system of marking that is consistent and continuous across each stage within our school, that informs and influences our planning and which enhances children’s learning.

  1. Aims

Effective marking should:

  • Give feedback to children; inform them of their achievements and the next steps in their learning
  • Relate to individual children’s progress and their individual targets for improvement
  • Relate to learning objectives and successes for each lesson
  • Give children specific praise for the success of their work, showing it is valued
  • Give children clear strategies on how they can improve their work
  • Help teachers evaluate teaching and inform future planning and next steps in learning
  • Show consistent codes and procedures throughout the school
  • Provide a tool for teacher assessment
  • Help parents to understand the strengths and areas to develop in their children’s work
  1. Principles of Good Marking

Good marking or annotation of children’s work should:

  • Be positive, motivating and constructive
  • Be at the child’s level of comprehension
  • Not penalise children’s attempts to expand their vocabulary
  • Be written in handwriting that is legible and spelt correctly and a model for the child
  • Be frequent and regular and be reviewed by the teacher
  • Provide information for the teacher on the success of the teaching
  • Relate to the Learning Objective of the lesson set but also relate to basic skills in English linked to handwriting and spelling and children’s individual targets
  • Positively affect the child’s progress
  • Use comments and/or stickers as a vehicle of praise
  • Relate to literacy targets in all written pieces particularly those linked to basic skills
  • Show whether the child has completed the work independently or with what level of support.
  • Ensure children can actively demonstrate understanding of targets set
  • Be consistent across all subjects
  • Build in time at the beginning of a session for children to address teacher’s comments and edit previous work

All teachers will adhere to the above principles and in addition will:

  • Ensure that all work provided is marked as soon as possible after completion, preferably on the same day and always before the next lesson
  • Give regular written and oral feedback
  • Provide time at the beginning of each lesson to review work from previous lessons
  • Adjust planning in the light of marking
  • Make learning objectives explicit and make sure that they are at the top of every piece of work
  • Involve children in the process from an early stage
  • Ensure children are clear about the teacher’s expectations
  • Use children’s work as exemplars
  1. Types of Marking

Verbal Feedback:

It is important for all children to have verbal feedback from the adult working with them. This may be to correct a child’s understanding or to extend the child’s learning. The teacher should indicate where verbal feedback has been given if related to written work.

Basic Marking:

The learning objective and date will be at the top of all pieces of work.

Basic marking would include one or more of the following:

  • Verbal comments and oral feedback during the lesson
  • Specific codes after lessons
  • Verbal comments and oral feedback after lessons to indicate the learning that was achieved in previous lessons
  • Highlighting the L.O. pink if child achieved
  • Underline if partly achieved in pink
  • Underline in green if not achieved

Children whose LO has been underlined in green will require some additional input from the teacher. This should be noted on lesson planning evaluations.

Support also needs to be identified for each piece of work as according to these codes:

I / Independent working
VP / Only verbal prompts and reminders were needed
WS / Child worked with a level of support that required more than verbal prompts.
1:1 / Child worked on a one to one basis with either T (teacher) or TA (teaching assistant).

Effective feedback: (Quality marking)

Teachers should use the language “tickled pink” and “green to grow”.

Tickled Pink

Examples to show where children have achieved the LO in a piece of work will be highlighted by the teacher with the pink highlighter. In addition the teacher will use the pink pen to identify the correct elements in the work and add positive comments at the bottom.

Green to Grow

Teachers will use the green pen to identify an area for the child to work on and improve. They will use the green to highlight any common spelling mistakes or incorrect answers. Teachers will identify an area the child needs to improve to move on in their learning. They will then provide a task or an opportunity to practice this new skill which is expected to be completed at the beginning of the next lesson. This should be a specific area that is commented on, discussed with the child and then highlighted before the next piece of work where it can be practiced in that piece of work. It would be useful to write the expected action at the top of the work as a reminder for the child and be checked before the child has completed the work and handed it in.

The comments should take this format:

Step 1 Show success (pink)

Step 2Indicate improvement (green)

Step 3Give improvement suggestion (green)

Step 4Make the improvement (child)

Within lessons, teachers should build in time for mini plenaries with opportunities for children to reflect on the learning outcomes and make improvements to work during the lesson.

Time should be given, either in the next lesson or in a specific response time, for children to read the marking comments and respond to the suggestions and complete the tasks.

Where children have responded to feedback marking in books, teachers should initial their feedback to acknowledge the child’s response.

Please also label the level of support the child received, using the codes above.

Self-Marking/Self-Assessment

  • At times, children may sometimes be encouraged to mark their own work under their teacher’s supervision
  • Children may also self-evaluate their learning verbally by identifying their own successes and looking for an improvement point
  • The plenary may then focus on this process as a way of analysing what the children can or cannot do
  • Children may use self-assessment target sheets to help them mark and assess their own piece of work or one of their peers.
  • At the end of any written activity, children should be encouraged to evaluate their learning in the lesson and their understanding of the LO. This can take a variety of forms ie. Marks out of ten, smiley faces etc.

Paired Marking

Children may sometimes mark work in pairs. Paired marking should include “2 stars and a wish” format. Children need to be trained to do this through modelling with the whole class, watching the paired marking in action.

  1. Monitoring and Evaluation

The monitoring of this policy will be the responsibility of the Deputy Principal and she will oversee the above process and produce an action plan prioritising any changes.

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