WeetwoodPrimary School
Marking Policy
Written: April 2006
Reviewed: Oct 2009
Next Review Date: 2012
This marking policy aims to establish a reflective and interactive dialogue between the child, teacher and other adults. It also aims to provide assessment information about progress made by the child and identify the next steps for learning.
The school is committed to raising standards and developing the potential of all children; the success of the policy lies in the direct link between marking, helping children improve and the reward system in school.
Aims of Marking and Oral Feedback
The aims and purposes of marking are:
- To motivate children to want to achieve more and to recognise success by allowing children to build a picture of their strengths and weaknesses.
- To enable staff to respond to children’s recorded work of all kinds.
- To provide information for the pupil and teacher on how well a piece of work has been understood and how well the learning objective has been met.
- To assess the quality of a piece of work. Factors for consideration may include:
- Relevance to the task set/learning objective
- Accuracy
- Presentation
- Extension beyond stated requirements.
- To assist the teacher with future planning. (is further explanation/more practice required or is child/group/class ready to move on)
- To provide a mechanism for target setting.
- To contribute to the learning process.
Staff have agreed that all work should be marked in some way, this includes worksheets. However, not all work requires the same level of annotation; some work could be acknowledged by a comment or initial.
Style and Tone of Written Comments
Teachers will mark in pencil or a green pen/pencil.
Teachers need to use a balance of written comments and oral feedback.Comments should be motivational and personal.
Comments need to be positive wherever possible.
Comments need to identify what has been achieved and then to target a specific area for improvement.
Where specific types of error have been identified, ways forward should be planned before child attempts work of a similar nature.
Marking method should suit the content (see individual subject headings)
Marking and oral feedback should reflect high expectations of all children’s effort and ability. However, teachers will use their own discretion when marking work, particularly of younger children and children with special needs. In these cases comments may be more oral than written, and include smiley faces and stickers.
Teacher’s written comments should never dominate a piece of work. Where extensive comment is required, feedback should be mainly oral. In Year 6, for example, marking will be much more detailed as the children approach SATtests.
Teachers can highlight good sentences/phrases etc.
Frequency
Marking should be undertaken as quickly as possible so that dialogue can take place with the child/group and areas of difficulty can be dealt with promptly.
Although teachers will always check children’s work, there are occasions where work will be marked by children, working with the teacher, as this can be a powerful teaching tool.
Children will be encouraged to self evaluate their own work and the work of their peers.
Consistency
Significant steps in learning should be noted whenever they happen, in children’s books (comment, sticker etc) in teacher’s record books or on children’s individual target sheets, so they can inform future planning for teaching and learning.
More detailed marking should be planned where work has been particularly identified in a scheme of work for assessment.
Teachers may choose to carry out detailed marking of a focus group each week to ensure quality marking and cut down on the number of books to be marked in detail each week.
Written comments in exercise books will be undertaken in pencil or green pen/pencil.
Teachers must make pupils aware of the objective/criteria against which the work will be marked.
When marking is returned to children, there will be time given for the children to read/respond to written comments and for staff to give oral feedback.
Before the next piece of work is undertaken, it is sometimes appropriate to re-visit the targets from the previous piece of work.
Marking for English
Creative Prose:
Detailed comments on organisation, style, grammar, interest etc. according to the criteria set.
Some correction of punctuation/spelling, but not sufficient to inhibit the flow. It is more desirable that pupils attempt to use more complex sentence construction/vocabulary with errors, than using ‘safer’, less expressive language correctly.
Two or three common errors can be corrected. Teacher’s knowledge of individual children will temper any marking and response.
Individual discussion of work wherever possible.
More intensive correction will take place where work is selected as rough draft/redraft/final copy.
Poetry
Initially no correction of spelling/punctuation as most work is attempted in rough before redrafting and writing out in final form.
Individual discussion or sharing work with the class takes place after the initial attempt.
Non-narrative writing
Comments relating to criteria set.
More attention to punctuation/spelling/grammar than in creative work, but teachers use discretion to ensure such marking does not impede response to main purpose of the task.
Spelling
Tests:
Words marked right √or wrongx
Mis-spelt words written once by class teacher, and then written in child’s own word book and learnt with weekly spellings if appropriate.
In writing:
KS1: incorrect spelling underlined, corrections at teacher’s discretion.
KS2: incorrect spelling underlined, class teacher corrects and spelling recorded inword book.
In dictation:
Incorrect spelling underlined. Children find spelling and write it out once, using spelling books, word lists or dictionaries.
Correction of Punctuation
See sheet: ‘Marking/Redrafting Symbols’ which will be on display in each classroom.
Missing speech marks/full stops/capital letters/question marks etc. put in by teacher in pencil or green pen.
Handwriting
Children are asked to do an extra line of practice if they have formed letters incorrectly. Where words have been spelt incorrectly when copying from handwriting textbooks, children will be asked to write correct spelling.
Layout of work
- Every piece is dated, using the date in words at the teacher’s discretion
- Titles underlined using a ruler in KS2
- In KS2, previous work is ruled off with pencil, after the teacher’s comments, as next piece of work is started.
- In KS1, a line is left between each piece of work.
- Worksheets have child’s full name and date by the end of Year 1
- When a text book is used, book, page and number are recorded at start of work. Where a worksheet is used, children record title plus (w)
- Pencil to be used at KS1, fountain pen, ink rollerball or berol handwriting pen to be used at KS2 for most written work when handwriting reaches an acceptable standard.
- The use of ICT for presentation of work is to be encouraged.
- No ink erasers or ‘Tippex’ to be used.
Marking for Mathematics
Work is marked right √or wrong xtogether with a helpful comment and/or discussion with the individual or whole class as appropriate.
If a child has really struggled with an exercise, the teacher ceases to mark work wrong and write a comment at the end, asking the child to discuss the exercise.
Corrections are completed after explanation - C indicates correction needed.
Differing criteria may occur within a given topic: e.g. work will be marked correct if mechanical process is right, ignoring minor errors such as missing £, cm etc., when topic first introduced, but as competence and confidence increase, then greater demands will be made for complete accuracy.
When carrying out calculations parts of the calculation / mechanical process which are correct will be marked as such and minor errors will be highlighted. When children are solving problems praise will be given for using an appropriate method even if the final answer is incorrect. As such children need to be given many opportunities to show working out.
Tests will be marked right √or wrongx.
Layout of Work
- All work dated with number date
- Each piece of work records book, page, number or work card where a scheme is used, and title & (w) where teacher’s worksheet is used.
- All lines ruled in KS2
- O of digit indicates error
Marking for Science
Children will be encouraged to use an appropriate form for communicating their findings in an Investigation, e.g., bullet points/tables etc.
Written comments and feedback on practical work.
Written comments on factual writing plus constructive criticism
Marking for RE and Foundation Subjects
Written comments, reinforced by oral feedback, including comments on how to improve.
Work marked against criteria set (history work not marked as an English grammar exercise). As with creative prose, one or two general spellings or punctuation corrections shown, but key topic words always corrected.
Marking by Support Staff
The role of support staff is central to supporting and moving forward children’s learning. When support staff work with a group of children they know from their access to planning and discussions with the class teacher what the planned learning and assessment opportunities are to be. With this information all staff should be actively encouraged to
- Write the context of the work
- Date and initial who gave support
- Provide an indication of the level of commitment that the child gave to the work.
Reviewed by Judy Brockbank and staff team October 2009
Signed:Signed:
Chair of Governing BodyHead Teacher
Dated:Dated:
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