SNEYD GREEN PRIMARY SCHOOLMARKING AND FEEDBACK POLICY

Rationale

Marking and feedback is a valuable and essential part of the learning process. Its aim is to give focussed feedback which is constructive and developmental. Effective marking informs future planning and helps children understand their achievements and what they need to do in order to improve further.

Marking is at its most effective when applied immediately, constructively and with a consistent approach.

Overview

Effective Marking should:

Provide clear feedback to pupils about the strengths and weaknesses in their work in relation to the learning objective taught

Motivate children to take responsibility for their own learning

Clearly focus pupils on what they need to do to improve their work and suggest ‘next steps’

Recognise, encourage and reward pupil’s effort and progress

Provide a record of pupil’s progress to inform accurate assessment

Directly inform future planning

Help parents understand strengths and weaknesses in their children’s work

Be positive, informative and useful to the child

Marking procedures

Fix It Time

Marking is irrelevant and ineffective if time is not given for children to read, understand and respond to the developmental steps which a teacher has given. Therefore at the start of each session ‘Fix It’ time is used to allow children to do this. It relies on marked books from the previous session being available for children to look through and understand misconceptions, correct and rehearse spelling mistakes, attempt an extension question, make corrections to highlighted questions, learn from their previous piece of work to improve their next piece. Fix It Time is a short focussed space of time – maximum 4 minutes.

Colour Coding

To ensure that positives and areas for development in marked work are clear to children, green and pink highlighters are used to highlight these areas; green for positives and pink for areas to be developed. It is vital that pink highlighting is used to identify the single most important areas of a child’s work that require improvement. Highlighting all areas which are incorrect would be confusing to a child and ineffective practice. Green and pink highlighted marks are made at the end of the piece and accompany a short positive and developmental comment.

Peer and Self Assessment

2 Stars and a Wish stampers or stickers can be used at the end of a session for children to assess their own, or their Fix It Friend’s work. This involves them assessing the completed work against the learning objective and noting two positive comments next to the stars and a developmental comment next to the wish. Opportunities for this marking are most prevalent in writing activities.

Peer and Self assessment marking does not replace the need for a teacher to make a comment on that piece of work.

Indicating levels of support

Stampers which indicate the level of support given are used as required. (Assisted Work, Verbal Feedback Given, Independent Work and Guided Group stampers are available to all staff) If a verbal feedback stamp is used, the depth of marking would be expected to be less as feedback has already been given on a 1:1 basis. Those working independently would expect a greater depth of marking on their work.

Spelling

High frequency words and technical language pertinent to a specific piece of work are expected to be addressed if spelt incorrectly. If many of these are incorrect, then just a small selection of those words which the teacher deems most important to the child’s development will be addressed. Children will be expected to rehearse such spellings (3 times at the bottom of their page) and add them to their personal spelling log (at the back of their book) during Fix It Time.

Guidelines for marking

  • As far as possible, marking will be done daily or when a piece of work is completed.
  • Teachers will use feedback from marking to inform future targets and planning.
  • Wherever possible, marking will be related to a clear learning objective, which has been shared with the children.
  • Good presentation is expected and may be marked.
  • Any colour pen can be used as long as it is in contrast to the pupil’s writing implement.
  • Marking will celebrate success whenever possible in order to raise self esteem and encourage all children to work to their full potential
  • Some work, such as half term assessments or ‘Big Writes’ will be levelled in a way clearly understood by the pupils.
  • A particularly successful piece of work may be displayed, rewarded with stickers or certificates or taken to be shown to another adult within the school.

SEN / Early Years

  • Appropriate comments or prompt questions will be written in language that the child understands.
  • For non readers, or when verbal feedback is deemed necessary, a face with a verbal feedback stamp will be given to show that a discussion will take place between teacher and pupil.
  • Completed work will be annotated to show the level of adult support which was given to the child.

Policy completed – June 2013

Review date – June 2014