This month’s #blogsync calls for our thoughts on marking. Initially I thought I had nothing to say on this topic but as the month has progressed I’ve changed my mind. So here are my thoughts.
I rarely mark! There, I’ve said it. If I do it’s just to satisfy a work scrutiny for our HT. (Please don’t let her be reading this!) Now before anyone rushes off to report me to Ofsted there is a very good reason for this lack of marking. There is not one single reader or writer in my class. Therefore my marking would have little or no impact on the children.
As you probably know the children in my class are all, in educational terms deemed to be low achievers. In my opinion, due to the amount of effort they need to put in, they are the highest achievers. To give you an example of this, one of my students uses Clicker 6. For those of you who don’t know Clicker 6 is a specialised program for children who struggle to write. When I want him to write his views on a topic I give him a choice of 3 contrasting views. One of my fab TAs programs 3 single cells with a symbol and a word to help him. He has a switch attached to his wheelchair and he selects the required cell by using his head to operate the switch. It may take this young man 30 minutes to scan across the cells and choose his preferred option. This takes tremendous effort from him and gives me and my staff deep joy. After this almighty effort there seems little value in me writing a cursory ‘well done’ on his work. What would be the point in writing his next steps for learning or levelling his work for him? None whatsoever! Therefore I rarely do it.
What we have instead is an online portfolio of work. Photographs are taken of the work, it is levelled and can be used for moderation purposes or for Ofsted. We also have achievement assemblies every Friday and the children receive certificates and trophies for exceptional effort. Postcards are sent home to parents to show how proud we are of their children and this is valued by our families.
All of this is more meaningful to our children than a marking regime which they have no hope of understanding. To see the smile on their faces when they receive a trophy is a sight to behold. Therefore this year, I rarely mark.
teachingbattleground said:
Reblogged this on The Echo Chamber.
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Andrew Cowley said:
Inspirational and moving as always!
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cherrylkd said:
Thank you Andrew. That’s a lovely comment. It’s all about what’s best for the children isn’t it.
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benleney said:
This does make me think of the blogs I am setting up for my classes – online work that can always be revisited and provides evidence of progress. Wish I could say exactly the same as you! (as an English teacher…)
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cherrylkd said:
As an English teacher you’re always going to have much marking. At least yours will mean something to the children. Still a lot of work though. You have my sympathy. The blogs and portfolios are far more valuable in my opinion. All children love a portfolio. Thanks for your comments 🙂
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shaf said:
Good for U. What kid reads marking anyway? Best firm of formative feedback is instant. Not 1 week later. I go to each kid land tick off a register giving feedback in the lesson, good bits, bits to improve,what they want to show me. Kids live to show what they’ve achieved so that’s what I di & I oooh- aaah! And praise everyone.i electronically mark as per school requirements but no more. Even that’s a pain. I select from five banked comments, three targets & efforts cut & paste. They get a level too. Even that takes hours that pupils spend 1sec glancing at. I’m going to create a pictorial stamp of all, paste whole thing onto everyones work then tick off one area. Should save time. Then i can focus on three areas, literacy, subject knowledge and neatness say. Lifes too short to faff about.
There are better ways to use up the hours God gave me & marking ain’t one of them.
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cherrylkd said:
I agree whole heatedly with you. Children do like immediate feedback. Thanks for commenting.
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shaf said:
It occurred to met that someone here might like some pre designed worksheets that I created to mark & track pupils. I teach business & computing and wrote some books that helped me really save on time & energy. I’m all for work life balance and reducing stress so please, visit http://www.alomental.com if you like to see what I mean.
Thank you. Hope it helps.
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cherrylkd said:
Thank you very much. That’s really kind. I’ll take a look.
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cherrylkd said:
I like your style. Good for you. There are def better ways to help children than marking 🙂
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