WashingwellCommunityPrimary School
‘Achievement for All’
Marking and Feedback Policy
Adopted: April 2014
Review: April 2015
Washingwell Primary School
Marking and Feedback Policy
At Washingwell Primary School we believe that marking is an essential part of planning, assessment,
teaching and learning. Through careful marking, we are able to assess what children have learnt, how they
have learnt and what their strengths and weaknesses are. Responding to pupils' work through
constructive comment acknowledges achievement, promotes positive attitudes and behaviour and leads
to an improvement in standards.
Purpose:
At Washingwell we believe that the purposes of marking are:
- to inform planning
- to provide information for assessment
- to encourage, motivate, support and promote positive attitudes
- to provide constructive feedback
- to recognise achievement, presentation and effort
- to show pupils that we value their work
- to promote higher standards
- to correct errors and clear up misunderstandings
- to assist learning
- to allow pupils to reflect on their performance and to set new targets together with the teacher.
Key Principles:
At Washingwell marking should:
- be constructive, motivating and positive
- be related to needs, attainment and ability
- be at the child’s level of comprehension
- be related to specific learning objectives and curricular targets which the pupil should know in
advance
- where possible, be accompanied by verbal comments
- follow consistent practice throughout the school
- ensure that pupils know how well they are doing and what they need to improve to make further
progress
- provide pupils with opportunities to assess their own work and that of others
- be written in handwriting that is legible and a model our handwriting policy for the child
- positively affect the child’s progress
Marking process:
We all (teachers, pupils and parents) need to understand that there are two types of marking, which
we will refer to as impact marking and recognition marking. The majority of this policy relates to impact marking, which is marking to identify progress and next steps to learning. There is a place for recognition marking at Washingwell, which is marking with a tick, dot or smiley face.
- A tick simply informsthe pupil that their work has been seen and is correct. This could be used for individual maths calculations.
- A dot informs children that there is an error which needs to be corrected as in simple mathscalcultaions.
- A smiley face indicates that the children have achieved the learning outcome and been successful in the task. There may not need to be any follow up or improvement which can be the case in topic work
When to mark:
- Marking should be done during, or as soon as possible after the completion of the task and always before the next teaching session of that subject.
- All work should be marked daily .
What to mark:
•Teachers will apply their judgement when choosing the detail and focus of the marking,depending on the learning objective, their knowledge of the child and the child’s personallearning targets.
•All literacy based activities will be marked using impact marking.
•All maths activities will use recognition marking with Teacher focused group using impact marking.
•All other subjects will use recognition marking as the minimum.
How to mark:
•Where marking takes place as part of a focused group activity within a lesson, there should be clear evidence of immediate impact marking through the use of codes (see appendix 2) and improvements evident in books.
•Where marking takes place after the task has been completed, the teacher will make a positive
Comment relating directly to the learning outcome, and, where appropriate provide a future
target. (This may need to be shared orally with the children at the beginning of the next session
or piece of work.)
•Marking should inform the child of the progress they are making and targets they need to work
towards and therefore should be personalised to individual needs.
•Marking should be done using legible writing – Reception and Year 1 print, Year 2 – 6 cursive as in line with our handwriting scheme.
•All children at WashingwellPrimary School write in pencil or blue pen. All marking by teaching
staff will be carried out in green pen. Marking by pupils should be done in coloured pencil.
After marking:
•Time needs to be given to pupils to reflect upon marking to ensure that they benefit from it.
Pupils must be given time to respond to marking, therefore marking needs to be explicit about
what the pupil needs to do. Five minute improvement time will be given to all children at the start of each literacy and numeracy activity based lesson.
•Corrections should support the child's learning and it should be remembered that too many can
overwhelm and demoralise the pupil.
•Concepts that are persistently misunderstood by individual children need to be recorded by the
teacher and explained personally.
•Where a large proportion of the class have misunderstood a concept, this should be planned into
the teaching session of the next lesson.
Pupil marking:
•Children may, where appropriate, self mark work, or mark another child’s work. The teacher will
review this marking.
•Homework can often be marked by the children themselves. In this way the class can discuss and
explain the answers.
•Erasers are used with caution. When drafting, errors are left and corrections are made around
them. This enables children and teachers to see where mistakes or misconceptions have been
made and how they have been addressed and rectified.
Teaching Assistants:
TAs should only mark work produced by their group of pupils and this should only be done within the
session to give immediate feedback. They should then inform the teacher of the progress and problems
from that piece of work. It is not the role of the TA to complete any other marking for the teacher.
Supply Teachers:
We expect supply teachers to mark work using a comment in any ink other than green.
In conclusion:
In applying these principles, we will maintain a consistency throughout school that will support all
children in their learning by focusing explicitly on what children ‘can do’ and identifying clearly ‘next
steps’ for their continued progress and improvement.
Success Criteria:
We know our policy is working if:
• there is evidence that work is being marked regularly
• marking informs future planning
• pupils acknowledge targets or ‘next steps’ and work towards achieving them
Monitoring:
We will ensure that these guidelines are being used consistently throughout the school by carrying out
Book Scrutiny. This will be the responsibility of the Leadership Team when carrying out monitoring
activities. Feedback on the implementation of the policy will be given during staff meetings or with
individual members of staff. The Governing body will monitor the implementation of the policy.
Reviewing the policy:
We will review our policy at the beginning of every academic year in order to reinforce it with established
staff and familiarise new staff with it.
Appendix 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.
Summative feedback/marking: Recognition Marking
This usually consists of ticks and dots and is associated with closed tasks or exercises where the answer
is either right or wrong. This can also be marked by the children, as a class or in groups. For example,
weekly spellings can be marked by the children or their peers but must be checked by the teacher.
As with any marking only a reasonable number of the most obvious mistakes should be corrected. For example:
• Sounds which have been missed out (e.g. wet / went)
• Tricky words misspelt after they have been taught (e.g. migh / my)
• Sounds represented incorrectly (e.g. seb / sed)
The teacher should mark their children’s work by writingsp above the error. These spellings are then practiced with look –cover-spell-check method three times at end of work.
Formative feedback/marking: Impact Marking
Some key pieces of work which form the basis of learning to be built on will have more in-depth marking
than other work. For example, in Literacy at the end of a unit, there should be an assessment grid
which should be differentiated according to ability of the children, and both child and teacher use this to mark independent pieces of writing. When the assessment grid is completed by child and teacher, the child should make a comment about how he/she could make improvements next time and the teacher should mark using an ‘effective feedback forlearning’ comment in order to:
Step 1: show success
Step 2: indicate improvement
Step 3: give improvement suggestion
Step 4: make the improvement
Comments examples:
Show success (STEP 1) - Please ensure that your comments should reflect the principle of building
children’s confidence. Praise should be given as important recognition of work done, such as: all round
excellence, a particular aspect e.g. presentation, a pupil’s personal target (PPT) which has been
achieved or their persistence and organisation. This could be verbal to a group, whole class or individuals through mini plenaries, visualisers or peer/self-assessment. Children may be given stickers, stamps or team points for their good work.
• Wow! That was a great paragraph.
• I really enjoyed reading your first sentence.
• Well done for remembering your finger spaces.
• You named these shapes really well.
• Wow, you are able to add up decimal numbers using the column method.
Indicate improvement (STEP 2)
This could be achieved through either written comments or verbal feedback.
• Next time try to change the way you start sentences
• Can you remember to start it with a capital letter?
• Now try and keep your letters on the line.
• Could you have told me how many lines of symmetry they had?
• Did you put all of the numbers in the correct columns?
Give improvement suggestion (STEP 3)
Teachers are expected to write an improvement comment for all independent learners.
• Slowly, the children crept up the stairs.
• The elephant ate all the apples
• Give the child a shape or a sum to do and check.
Make improvement (STEP 4) – editing (pencil KS2 coloured pencil KS1)
All children will be given at least 5 minutes improvement time at the beginning of the next session to ensure improvements are addressed.
Appendix 2:
Specific Details on Year Groups:
At Washingwellwe accept that written marking of work has to be tailored to meet the ability and age of
each child and the subject being marked. This policy will be used throughout the school but the details
below will guide teachers in specific year groups as to any particular applications for pupils within their
area.
Foundation Stage:
•In Foundation Stage, positive comments are accompanied by a smiley face. Wherever
appropriate we provide the child with a simple target.
•On all pieces of work it is indicated whether the child has completed the work independently or
with some assistance.
I - Independent work
S – Work supported by teacher or teaching assistant
•Children always receive verbal feedback
•Stampers and/or stickers are used as additional rewards
•When appropriate children will work with teachers to begin to correct and improve their work. This will be done with support and in a coloured pencil.
Key Stage 1:
• In Year 1 and Year 2 work is often marked and discussed with the child present. This will be
identified by Vbeing written against the work as opposed to marking.
• The level of marking will depend on the ability of the child.
• The Washingwell Marking Code will be used when a teacher feels that the child will be able to
understand the marks made.
I - Independent work
S – Work supported by teacher or teaching assistant
SP – Spelling
Smiley Face - Learning Outcome has been achieved
Straight face – More work needed on Learning Outcome
• Highlighters can be used in marking to highlight where improvements need to be made.
• Up to three spelling errors will be identified in a piece of work. Pupils will write out this
spelling three times at the start of the next lesson.
Key Stage 2:
• All literacy based work will be marked with Improvement Marking and the codes below are used to support.
I - Independent work
S – Work supported by teacher or teaching assistant
SP – Spelling
P – Punctuation missing or incorrect
•circle around to indicate capital letter needed
Smiley Face - Learning Outcome has been achieved
Straight face – More work needed on Learning Outcome
….. indicates the section of work that needs improving
? – Doesnot make sense
- Highlighters can be used in marking to highlight where improvements need to be made.
- Up to three spelling errors will be identified in a piece of work – it is expected that these spellings will be addressed in next piece of writing.
- All improvements will be done in pencil.
AH/Marking/Policies2014