Marking 180 mock papers….can’t cope

[Supermummy88]

Good everyone.

I’ve been teaching for over 10 years and had a career break for 2 years whilst my children were young and not in full time school. I was doing supply a few days a week. However, I’ve now gone back into work full time and taken the role as head of geography. I started in October. I have 3 year 11 classes, 2 year 10 classes, 2 year 9 classes, 1 year 8 and 1 year 7.

The year 11’s had their mocks in december and I marked both paper 1 and paper 2. Both papers were about 20 pages long each…120 papers in total! I really struggled to mark them all. I have 2 young children of my own and I felt they really struggled as I spent no time with them at all.

Year 11 now have mocks again in February and I will have to mark again, however this time I will also have to mark paper 3. I know deep down I won’t be able to cope…especially because of the work load I already have. I’m now thinking that I perhaps should have just stuck to supply teaching. It took me about 40 minutes to mark each paper as there are many extended questions.

What are your thoughts on this? In previous schools I’ve only ever had one year 11 class so the mock marking wasn’t as intense.

Thank you

Do this. If he can't help go off sick..contact your union

He sounds like an idiot, so how exactly can they progress skills when there's no teaching and reflection time in between?

It's vice principal and principal not principle though, they are the top not that they are the value 😁.

This goes against all the teacher workload stuff from dfe so I'd get the union rep involved gor your union.

You do need to move schools though. This week's schedule is ridiculous and slt should have planned the year in advance so you know about all dates and directed time and so no more than 1 afterschool meeting a week plus hods or hofs who get paid to do an extra one.

It's quite normal to have 3 or even 4 5-10 min briefings just before registration though these also count as directed time. We have 2 all staff and 1 yr group a week but they are quick, then weekly cpd OR parents eve OR open eve and sometimes that's faculty or year group, sometimes marking time so after ppe's the 2 late days are for marking, sometimes all staff training or carousel training or choose a video or podcast training.
All of these are directed time and slt have to plan the whole year in advance.

My school doesn't consider gain time so your directed time is based on the weekly timetable of lessons, some schools over tt teachers of yr11 so over the Yr they have the full directed time. But that's silly as it's more demanding so you do need prep time/ relax / tidy the office and sort all the resources time!

Speak to your line manager and see if you can come off timetable to mark them.

There are so many people here oblivious to how schools work. Get classes covered? You need to prep work for them then and then mark it all. Reinforces that so many have no idea what goes on in schools.

We don’t usually mark class work in secondary. Yes, you do have to prep cover but thanks to the Oak National Academy that just takes a few minutes.

Can you not mark it with them in class

1. Union
2. Start looking for another job ASAP
3. Use your weekly department meetings to get some of the exams marked. Colleague can do the low-mark questions. Set all your classes research type HW or work that can be peer-marked. Colleague can do the same.

Too.much.

That sounds horrendous. I’m a geography teacher - 25 students in my yr11 class, full Paper 1 and 2 mocks in December took me 15 hrs to mark (I finally timed it this year). It is just completely unrealistic to manage the marking alone, children of your own or not.

I agree with going to SLT and stating the issue and ask for support with your preferred solution. In the first instance, the other teacher in the department can share the load in marking the shorter answers (it is good CPD too and can be done easily with a markscheme and just ask you about ones where he’s not sure). Then, for the extended answers, ask for cover or to be excused from non-essential meetings/duty or whatever is appropriate for your school. If none of this is practical, tell your SLT that you will not be marking a second set of mocks as you will instead prioritise planning good lessons to help them prepare for the actual exams. Then they can decide what to do with that information! You could point out that your alternative plan is to resign from post at the earliest opportunity and return to supply teaching. They will not want that to happen any more than you do.

I was Head of Geography at a large comprehensive school. We divided all exam marking between the 3 Geography teachers, regardless of how many classes each one taught in that year group. So if there were 4 Year 11 classes, each Geography teacher marked one quarter of the paper for all 4 classes regardless of how many classes/students they taught. It is best for individual teachers to mark the same questions throughout the paper as all students are then marked to the same standard.
As Head of Department it is up to you to tell your department how the marking is distributed between them. You need to be seen as being fair of course.
I agree that Geography is a nightmare for marking as you teach so many students. Maths or English teachers have more lessons a week per class and consequently teachers of those subjects have fewer students and marking to oversee.
Good luck!

So the unqualified teacher is only allowed to mark the 1 and 2 mark questions. This still doesn’t save me such time. Has anyone seen how long each paper is? 😭 marking them is a full time job within itself. I don’t mind once a year, but twice a year within 2 months is just not fair at all. Vice principle doesn’t really seem that supportive with anyone. The head of history has 350 papers to mark, and she’s going out of her mind. Will be interesting to see how many teachers will last until the end of the academic year!

Sounds like an extremely unhealthy place to be, perhaps another place would be better.

Yeah. Resign.

The fact that SLT haven’t already considered the logistics of this is a sign of ineffective management. And then you went to see them and they still didn’t rethink? Nope. Leave. This wouldn’t be deemed acceptable in any other profession- because it’s clearly mental. We accept nutty situations way too much in teaching. You are still expected to do your normal job while also having a ridiculously taxing and boring additional task, that you then won’t even be able to do effectively because you’re so tired- and it’s of questionable benefit anyway?

To put this in context I am currently marking mocks (23 papers because they’ve been shared between the department), and SLT have asked us to keep a note of how long it actually takes so they can reconsider workload. We have only two after school meetings per half term because of this thinking. It’s an ‘outstanding’ school.

Is this a state or private school? Sounds awful either way with only one qualified teacher!

Vice principle sounds insane. How stressful for kids for have mocks 3 MONTHS apart!

And for your own sanity this sounds totally untenable. The expectations (particularly keeping in mind a young family) sound consistently like more than anyone can fit in to a normal week?

Personally I’d be seeing what the recruiters you’ve mentioned have to say. I hope you managed for find a solution. It’s not necessarily about prioritising your students sometimes but yourself (like it is with my patients) and your neither use nor ornament burnt out of teaching altogether x

Can you use some non teaching time in school day? 40 minutes for each paper seems a long time?

Train him to mark everything but the very longest answers then. This is clearly the standard at your school to have ridiculous numbers of meetings and far too much marking. Get out.

Throw a sickie to mark them.

Then look for a job in a school with a less insane SLT.

There are schools out there that don't have such mad expectations.

Don't throw a sickie - you need a decent reference!

It’s sad but I agree with others call in sick, send in some cover work and work from
home. They are making you do this.

If you are in North London and need a Geography job let me know as family in secondary’s chills will snap you up. Their mocks are November and March for Year 11 and January and May for Year 10.

Don't call in sick. It'll be bloody obvious why.

Same. In English, it’s escalated up through different people if it can’t be read.

No, this is not the case for all exam boards (for English).

Then give him the Year 7 and 8 papers to mark. When I was Head of Subject and I taught GCSE and 2 x A level classes as well as younger year groups I marked Exams for AQA. I used to find I could mark a lot quicker when I marked early in the morning. I used to set my alarm for 5am and try to mark 4-5 full papers before work each day. That's a full GCSE set within a week. I marked more from about 6-9pm each evening and all but about 2 hours a day at weekends. This went on for 3 weeks. My DH was brilliant and dealt with DC on his own both at home and took them out for me. He also used to add up all the marks for me and put them on to the system for me to save me time. I used to plan ahead by doing my prep weeks ahead of when I needed it and not setting homework that needed marking whilst I was marking mock exam papers. In my school mock exam papers I set GCSE a few weeks ahead of the A level papers. In future could you ask the Head of Curriculum if the 2 mock exams could be staggered to help the marking load?

The head of history has 350 papers to mark, and she’s going out of her mind.

Can you join forces and speak to SLT together?