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

I used to mark the papers and DH kindly added up the marks and put the marks in to spreadsheet for me.

English teacher and examiner here (15 years in the game).
Some ideas:

• get up early (/earlier) in the morning to do some
• can you mark while commuting (if you take public transport)?
• use a number key for marking the most common errors rather than writing the same comments repeatedly (e.g. 1 = wrong place name, 2 = insufficiently developed answer etc) and give the marking key that you have devised to the kids
• similarly, for the most common errors, do whole-class feedback (there are templates on TES). Then you just fill that out as you go rather than writing on every paper
• you mark the extended responses which require more experience to do - your colleague who has never taught GCSE marks the basic yes/no, true/false questions at the beginning of the paper. Examining boards do this all the time: they often allocate these basic questions to uni graduates/those with little/no teaching experience
• in the same way, get yourself into a ‘zone’ of marking only one question number at a time (so one night you mark all the question 7s…something like that). That way you familiarise yourself with the mark scheme for that question and it goes much faster as you develop more of an ‘instinct’ for the ‘correct’ mark
• finally…if really desperate…pay to outsource it. MarkMyPapers does this. They only hire examiners and are really very good.

Best of luck!!

Op, you need to leave at Easter. This school is toxic and you will burn out.

I marked GCSE English for one of the big boards a few years ago. We were expected to take 15 minutes per paper. Even if you allow 20, you will halve your marking time. I would also be handing over some papers to the other geography teacher. A quick check to make sure his marking was OK would save you from doing it all and prepare him for the future.

Regarding marking one Q at a time, stack the papers open on the particular Q (when you finish marking the last Q) so you can plough through without flapping papers around.

But most of all as soon as you finish marking your last paper, write your resignation letter.

Here's the thing - he can have his deadline but you don't have to meet it if it is unreasonable. Keep a note of the hours you are spending on the task. If you can't do them in the time allowed send a very polite and professional email explaining that with regret you have been unable to meet the deadline due to the large number of papers. Attach the schedule you have been working to.

In the run up to this, start looking for another job. The place sounds toxic.

Skim read. You’ll pickup speed and get faster eventually. Give yourself a time limit, have a break every 10 scripts. Divide script number by time available, get ahead of schedule and give yourself a treat.
english teachers often have much more to mark.
i agree it’s a disgrace, but education has not been prioritised by the Tories.
Oh, another strategy, make sure they’re voted out.

I teach English. We did mocks before Christmas but I refused to mark them
in my Christmas break. I had 60 full papers and got through them over two full weekends (so four full working days worth of marking) and the week in between. I made some of my KS3 lessons very easy by watching the film version of what we were reading for a lesson (3 year 8 classes so 3 hours of marking) Y10 were happy to watch Macbeth so another 2 hours gained. Then three nights staying up until 1.30am.

In short, I should have marked them
over Christmas as I made myself ill. And you have three times as many papers as me.

In your shoes, I would speak to SLT, explain the issue (look at how many Y11 classes the average teacher has for example) and ask for at least a day off timetable and the opportunity to miss both meetings after school that fortnight as a minimum. I’d also spend 30 minutes or so with Mr-Can’t-Teach-KS4 and show him how to mark some of the lower tariffs Qs on P1 and 2 (give him a top, middle and bottom from the last round as a guide) If he doesn’t learn to mark GCSE papers this will be your life going forwards.

I really empathise with you. Good luck (and think of the gained time in June!)

@Catkin51 ,

That kind of dividing up is what we used to do too.

But 180 papers?! I remember the feeling of dread I had marking 45 Physics GCSE mocks (and don’t even start on the TAG year, where we had to mark the real thing too).

I am an efficient marker and I reckon a 2 hour paper for 25 students would take me 4 hours to mark properly, and Physics is a fast subject to mark.

So 180 papers in a wordy subject must be around 30-40 hours. That is an entire week’s worth of marking. It is just unrealistic to expect a teacher to do this.

The vice-principal (not principle!) is going to lose all his dedicated staff. What an idiot. You are a valuable asset OP. Know your worth.

My answer is antagonistic, but are you being paid overtime for the extra time you are needing to give!!! Why is teaching the only job in the world where you work extra time without extra pay, and it is expected and tolerated by staff, management, Unions etc???? At least if you were being paid for the extra time, you wouldn’t feel so put upon, under valued and probably working for less than minimum wage, which is illegal, as well as immoral!

Whilst your advice is very helpful. Nothing will ever change in the education system if we all continue to break our necks like this when faced with a completely unreasonable workload. The OP must speak up!

Can you explain please? I'm obviously out of touch. I mean about the not marking work.

This is what one of our staff does. Goes off sick for a day.

Suggested ways forward:
speak to line manager about time off timetable or a relaxed deadline to finish
only mark the new paper and combine with previous 2 papers
go through a paper(s) in class teaching students the mark scheme (worthwhile)
as HoD you should have options

otherwise take a sickie

What do you think is going on here? Yes/no answers? What is the capital of France?

Ok. How about you just don’t? I mean go on let them fire you. Who will they get to replace you?

Definitely call in sick for 2 or 3 days. SLT will not respond well to you complaining or refusing to mark the papers. Phone in sick, mark for full days from home then return with your marking done. Providing you are relatively healthy and can sustain your attendance record generally it shouldn’t be an issue- there are tons of viruses about at the moment and it gives you the opportunity to mark in a less stressed environment without exhausting yourself or working late in to the night. It might not be morally right but it is a sad reflection of the state of our education system that you need to protect your own time and well being.

I actually like the sick day option as well. You can’t mark things if you can’t physically manage the workload. It’s not really a chose to or not it’s a hours in the day thing.

One of the schools I work at had a TT reshuffle to mean only 4 of the English teachers (ie the top 4) were taking the Y11 classes rather than 7 in a split/rotation. Made sense but obviously throws up the same issue for rehearsal exams when there are 2 Lang and Lit paper for each student x220 so 660/4 papers per teacher. The (unusually generous) solution was to send them away to a company called Mark My Papers who charged about £5k to send them out to GCSE markers and send back a q by q break down of each paper in a fortnight.

We had the similar thing with maths - 220*3 papers / 5 staff but in this instance each teacher was given 2 extra frees per week for a fortnight to allow for the marking given it's easier to mark them. As per PP, I'd be almost demanding some internal/external help of some kind.

Thank you everyone for your advice…really appreciate it. I can’t explain how exhausted I am. I can just about look after my own children at the moment…my husband has to do everything in the evenings as I have no energy. Vice principle doesn’t have a sympathy towards anyone at all…he just wants the work done. There is no such thing as staff wellbeing here. Staff are always off sick, I’m constantly on cover during my PPA’s, and the meetings are relentless. Apparently all the decisions are made by the ‘trust’. Last week we were told on a Tuesday that we have an after school meeting until 4.30 on Thursday. Things like that should be rescheduled in advance. My children had swimming after school, which meant I couldn’t take them.

You need to get out of there OP.

I'm so sorry. It sounds AWFUL.

I'm no expert as I'm not a teacher, I work in educational data, but to pick up on that last point - shouldn't your PPA's be sacrosanct? I know lots of rules can be bent "because we're a trust" but PPA's are a legality aren't they? Worth chatting to your union rep?

Leave - find another job. It’s not worth the anguish.

I wouldn’t have stayed. Why should your children suffer. And I assume the swimming lessons are paid in advance. What’s the worst they can do?

Your school sounds truly terrible. Get out as soon as possible.