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've just had a look at a GCSE P3 exam paper (yes I am that sad) - loads of 1, 2 and 4 markers that your colleague could mark.

I bet you teach one of the Humanities. SLT have stupid expectations of Humanities teachers, I know from family members.

My husband is marking his yr 11’s mocks (history) as we speak. He just does a little here and there and does it by question (so all of their question 1 answers before moving on to question 2 etc). Bit of a slog though!

Not a teacher but have done invigilating for many years. It didn't happen often but some years the school I used to work in did put on a second set of mocks although not in every subject. We were told it was because the kids had done so badly in the first set.

180?!?! That's despicable. I have only 22 I my class, and have 2 exams for mocks (so 44 papers in total) and I'm buckling (lots of essays in each paper). I put my kids to bed then get on it for 2 or 3 hours. It's awful and is making me ill. But yours sounds literally impossible.

You need to put in writing: how long each paper takes you to mark, how many you have, and therefore how much time you will have to spend on them in total. Show your line manager why it is unworkable.

Possinle solutions- Whole Class Feedback for the papers they have already done?
Self/peer assessment where you go through the answers in class?
Outsource the marking?
All of these are likely to need approval from line manager, but at least you can show you have tried to come up with alternatives!

They don't need to do all 3 papers again. Forget that idea and say no to marking it.

A gcse paper taking 5 mins, are you joking?

Even for maths which is "quick" to mark, 5 minutes would be impossible unless most of it was blank.

Thank you for all your advice. We are not allowed to peer mark the mocks. I will have to speak to SLT and see what they suggest. From what I’ve sensed, they want your life to be about school!!! On Mondays I have line management meetings during my PPA, on Tuesdays CPD, Wednesday mornings pastoral meeting, Wednesday after school department meeting, Thursday mornings head of department meetings and Thursday after school I have to do year 11 intervention. It’s very very stressful. I have been ill 3 times already since I started in October, but haven’t taken any time off. They also have ofsted due to come in any time now.

Also the other geography teacher is an unqualified teacher from abroad. They couldn’t find anyone else so gave him a chance. However, they don’t want to train him up to gcse level. He is only teaching ks3.

I'm not a teacher but I do some temp lecturing work. Mostly marking. I mark papers for any module within the subject area, I have no experience of teaching that content.

My point is, the other geography teacher needs to step up here!

This is a shocking workload, I really feel for you op.

I know this is likely a ridiculous suggestion, but I recall as a student, us swapping papers and marking eachothers in class - I assume that's not an option for the more straightforward parts? Please don't rip me to shreds, I know its likely a stupid idea 🙈

Ooops I'm so sorry, cross posted 🤪

I agree with PPs, if they insisted on all 3 papers, have a sick bug, make sure the papers are home with you and mark. Sod it.

😂

You need to go to your SLT with clear expectations e.g it will take me x minutes to mark one paper do the total to mark these papers will be….. I have Ty number of PPA.
do you expect me to mark in the evenings, do you expect me to mark over my weekend when I am not paid?
Also have some solutions, if I could get some lessons covered I will be able to do ….
This has worked for family and friends in teaching. As I said the Humanities are brutal when it comes to mocks and marking. Good luck.

After this update, you need to get the hell out of this school.

Hand your notice in now so you can leave at Easter.

You will find another job. Geographers are in high demand.

Your school is mental and this workload is unsustainable. You need to protect yourself and your own wellbeing.

I moved to the independent sector 3 years into my career after being up until 1am every night marking and nearly losing my mind. Ten years on, I've never looked back. Class sizes of 16 max, equal numbers of free periods and teaching periods, and 1 meeting after school per week. I leave school at 5 and don't do a jot of work until I get in again at 8.30 the following morning. I highly recommend jumping ship. I know it's not possible for everyone, but right now, independent schools are really the only way to make teaching enjoyable as a career. Either that, or working part time in a state school with reasonable SLT, which seems to be few and far between in our current state of academisation.

I'm so sorry you've been put in this situation. Teaching is in crisis and more people need to share the reality of life in state schools right now so that something actually gets done about it, rather than bluster and hot air.

That amount of meetings is ridiculous - talk to your union.

Your colleague can still mark the low-mark questions after a bit of training by you in a dept meeting. As others have said - go with solutions so:

a) Paper 3 only
b) You get cover so you can manage the markload

Either way, your colleague needs to mark some.

If the colleague is never going to teach any GCSE then start looking for another school.

It sounds pretty unreasonable to me! I’m sure in my school if my line manager knew I was on that position she would intervene. Can’t the less experienced teacher do some moderation with you and chip in? Or give the students a bit less formal exam practice, since you can only do what’s actually possible. I hope the school realises they could lose people over these kinds of expectations- it’s in no one’s interests.

There will be a data drop by half term in order to inform the exam entries across the cohort. That has to be completed in advance so that the Data for all subjects can be analysed as related to target grades/expected levels of progress. It'll also show further areas of intervention and assess whether existing ones have had any discernible impact.

The scale of the analysis means that the deadline won't be able to be extended at all.

Why do they need the data for paper 1 and 2 twice, so close to each other? Kids aren’t going to have chance to make that much progress between December and February, so why bother having data being marked twice? They should either just be doing paper 3 in Feb, or they do all papers and only paper 3 is marked and used for data.

Also, as an English teacher, no way can I mark 5 questions in 5 minutes.

All I would say is do what is reasonable and remember that your school isn’t every school. Some will be much better to work at. Sounds like yours is struggling and under pressure to pass the impending Ofsted. In the mean time they will lose staff due to the conditions. There are loads of jobs out there so make sure you are happy where you are.

@Supermummy88 and this is why teachers are leaving in their droves. 💐

Sorry OP but your update makes it clear this is not a good school to work in. Start looking for another- they’re not all like that!

Since I’ve started (October) about 5 members of staff have left already. If I leave the department will be a shambles! There is a massive shortage of geography teachers at the moment…they are very difficult to find. I get so many calls everyday from different agencies about geography roles. This school currently requires improvement. I’m not quite sure what to do because working to this extent is not sustainable. Do all schools have so many meetings nowadays? I was used to only having one a week.

@Supermummy88 many are like this.
If you find a suitable vacancy make sure you find out about meetings etc.
Past three schools I worked at were like this.
No longer a secondary teacher.

You need to leave. We only mark one paper per mock, three is madness! Your school sound awful, it's not like that everywhere, and as a Geography teacher you'll walk into another job. What happens if you leave is not your responsibility, it's the responsibility of the SLT and their shit policies. If their policies were less shit, they'd not lose so many teachers. You don't need to stay, it's their job to keep their staff, if they all leave they'll have no choice but to change. Hand in your notice before half term, and insist on an exit interview.

You owe them nothing.

They're losing teachers because the management is inept. That's not your fault.

I know it feels terrible leaving the kids but ultimately your first responsibility is to your own wellbeing.

Not all schools are like this. No, it is not normal to have this many meetings. It is also not normal to be the only person who can teach GCSE in a department.

You can pick and choose where you work. As you say, there is a massive shortage in your subject at the moment. You could walk out tomorrow and get work somewhere else. You don't need to put up with this, so don't. Teachers put up with so much shit out of guilt and misplaced loyalty - it's not fair and ultimately it doesn't make any difference. Please, for your own sake, just leave.