Dd in year 7 - how often should books be marked?

Last weekend I sat and marked my year 7 books for 4 hours as they have been sorely neglected on that front for many weeks as year 10 (controlled assessments), 11 and 12 (exams) have taken priority and I was getting up at 4am to mark and just couldn't squeeze yr 7 amongst all the timed essays. They now have the full glare of my attention and look quite startled! It isn't fair and frustrating for you and dd certainly - she certainly should have been given some revision pointers.

Celia, i'd be delighted if i actually thought most pupils read my marking points
depends on the schools marking policy - ours is every six contacts, so if your dd's was marked at the end of the spring term, and she has 1 history lesson/week (quite likely - i see my y8's 3 lessons/fortnight) then her teacher actually is not very far behind on the marking. Kez is right too, this time of year is manic, and i am concentrating on my y10/11/12/13s who all have major public exams over the may/june period.
If you are concerned then i would suggest purchasing a KS3 revision guide to help over the exam period - that would be really useful.

There has been another thread on here recently asking exactly the same thing with answers from teachers and parents.

My experience (I have a year 9 and one just finished year 11) is that this time of year is dedicated to the GCSE students. Teachers bend over backwards to help and provide after school revision classes. There is only 24 hours in a day, and marking of other years- however unfair it might seem - just cannot fit in the time given.

One example - my daughter had a wobble on Poetry on the day of her GCSE exam a week or so ago. She went to see her English teacher in the morning who was marking books. The Teacher dropped the marking and spent some considerable time helping her confidence. There were probably 20 books not marked because of this but - on balance - I expect most parents taking an overall view would agree it was the right priority.