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

We don't even have one meeting every week.

Yes, as someone suggested, do all Q1s then all Q1s. Lay them all out stacked on top of each other on a big table and mark standing up.

Ask for Geog to be the first exam in the fortnight to make the most of your gain time.

Set something lame for KS3 that they can just get on with while you mark.

Spend less time on the extended questions. It shouldn't take more than 5 mins for each one if you're concentrating.

Set targets with numbers on the papers then get the kids to write the full target down from the board with the corresponding numbers. Eg. Target 1= include keywords
Target 2= provide a conclusion

Plan your time and stick to it e.g. on Monday do Qs1-5 for class 11A, Tuesday Qs1-5 for 11B etc

Get someone else to add up the marks at the end!

Are you in a union?

From what I make out form my high school kids. The 7,8,9 classes are not actively taught week after mocks. The teachers mark on class and they watch videos.

We wouldn't be allowed to do that where I work! . Plus, the parents would complain. The problem here is with the Geography GCSE workload, so that's the point to be addressed.

is it only geography that is struggling at your school, or are other teachers in the same boat? Would be useful if a few of you grouped together to complain.

I'm not a teacher OP but that sounds like an awful lot of classes for one person to teach, plan and mark work for.

You need to request cover for some of your lessons to give you the time to do this. I used to work in SLT and we would do this when some staff had disproportionate amounts of mock marking.

I remember at school we did peer marking for GCSE mocks. One (sometimes two) timetabled 'revision' lessons dedicated to the marking. The teacher went through the mark scheme. Students would read out their peers' answers if unsure whether to mark correct or incorrect. The teacher would explain why the answers were strong or weak. It was actually helpful. As students, we had to look over the questions again, not just flick to the grade and feedback. Takes some pressure off the teachers too.

Otherwise, I agree the new geography teacher should be marking papers. They have a degree. We are talking about GCSE, not university-level work.

Not all schools are like this.
Do your research. Ask the receptionist about turnover when you call. Banter about behaviour. Possibly even pretend to be a prospective parent and call.
Check the stats on compare schools website, in detail with the numbers of less able children etc. Check the pp %.
Read between the lines in ofsted.
Search Facebook/ Internet for staff who've said things online.

I work at a great school, my first was bad, 2nd pretty good but I was a lone department so mostly set my own rules, not so good in say science, my 3rd is fab. 15 years ish in and I'm planning to stay. 5th year at this school, 6 at the 2nd.

If you share your marking with colleagues, you should also share your gained time in the summer term- only fair.

I've taught three year 11 classes before and it's tough but you make it work. Year 11 have paper 1s in December and paper 2 in March. I mark as much as I can in gained time during the mock fortnight. If needed, set one or two classes easy i-pad research work so you can mark during lesson time.

Markolepsy (noun)- extreme tiredness brought on by excessive marking.

@Superduper02 I'm appreciative of your surprise. That is normal for a teacher (and actually will be slightly lower than normal as OP will have HoD hours too).

When I worked in an RI school it was similar. The results were shit so they did more testing trying to show that things were improving = stressed staff = teachers leaving

It's bad management and so counterproductive.

I think you need to point out that if you become ill, which seems likely at this rate, they will have three GCSE groups with no teacher. Ask anyone, and they would probably say better to have only one mock paper and a teacher than three and no teacher thereafter.
I'd be inclined to talk to your union rep, too.

Sorry to hear this - been there done that but not with as many papers to mark.

For those suggesting ask for time off - it’s not how schools work - not any that I’ve worked in/heard of.

So practicalities……

How do you mark? Everyones q1 then everyones q2 etc.
or straight through each one? Alphabetical order or pull them out of the pile at random?

Sometimes you can get a bit done in a lesson where your pupils are working by themselves.

Don’t mark the unreadable, redline through it. A lesson to be learnt as unreadable work won’t be marked when its for real inte summer.

Not sure if you use past papers or produce your own. I sometimes did the latter and tried, as well as testing pupils’ knowledge and understanding, to make them easy to mark and calculate the marks.

All the best.

@Supermummy88 ask for some extra PPA time to mark them.

Assuming there's only 10 double periods in a week, then almost everything e.g. planning, marking has to be done outside of the 9 to 3.30pm. If that is what most teachers experience then I am unsurprised by the profession-wide outrage.

Also OP to speak directly to your situation, it's just not good enough that there is another Geog teacher on the staff who can only do years 7 to 9. You have my sympathy.

I would do the following:
-Put a video on for all your classes and get marking in the school day(s).
-Get a text book and they work through it in silence while you mark.
-Book the computer room for your classes - they do an independent project while you mark.
-Ask for cover to mark them.

Other more left field ideas:

• Be ‘sick’ for two days and mark them.
• Give the students a mark scheme and get them to mark them - they are going to get in the vincinity and you can just skim read them.
• Choose your top ten brightest students and coach them in marking them - then let them loose on 12 each that you mark after school as a club for two hours- bill it as amazing exam analysis.
• Outsource the marking to anyone who might help you for money eg ex English teachers who live in your area.

I don’t know why my dashes became dots…delegate, ChatGPT, do anything to make yourself the highest priority.

They didn’t need to do both papers in this round of mocks so that needs to be worked out better next year.

Three Year 11 classes is too much - you might have to plough through until May and then enjoy the gained time whilst also having more control over next year’s timetable.

I know this might be unconventional but do you have any sensible and switched on A-level students at the school, particularly those who might wish to be teachers and did well at GCSE geography? Could they be given the papers open on a page of short answer questions (with the cover folded back to hide the pupils name) and given something as a reward (I don't know, a free textbook or some supplies/cake from the canteen/anything).
It would look good on personal statements for UCAS and those doing DofE if your school runs it it could be volunteering. Try to think outside the box!
I did this for my Spanish teacher at 16/17, helping her in a year 10 class and helped mark some of the mock tests as i wanted to be a teacher at the time (objective/short answer questions mainly). In return I got a steady supply of Spanish literature from her home library to use for my essays!

@Superduper02 you are spot on. As soon as the kids leave school, the meetings start and only after those are can the desk-job begin. And also done in the evening once our own kids are in bed.
Yes some days we have a PPA hour, but realistically what fraction of that work can be done in a single hour between lessons.
Strikes were not just about the salary, but about the workload which is horrendous as you've noted, and the crazy expectations like the OP is suffering.
Sorry to slightly derail the thread, but there is so much negativity about teachers that your post really stood out to me.

You need to leave this school OP, the marking load is too much for one person, and the meetings sound insane. At my school we have one departmental meeting and one pastoral meeting per half-term.

The school are relying on you being too concerned about leaving the Geography department without qualified staff and think that will stop you leaving. No private sector employee would put up with this, and there's no reason for you to do so. Conditions won't improve as long as teachers roll over and accept stuff like this.

My suggestion: email your line manager and set out the issue as you've outlined above. If they come up with a feasible and helpful solution great. If they don't, arrange a meeting and tell them you're planning on looking for other jobs as you can't cope with the workload here. Phrase it along the lines of you don't feel you are currently able to give all of the students the amount of time/attention that they deserve and it is better that the school finds someone who is able to. That will make them sit up and find a solution fast - if they're expecting Ofsted soon, they won't want to risk a Geography deep dive in a department staffed with supply teachers.

As for solutions for the actual marking....give yourself the bare minimum of time needed to scan/speed-read each question and then assign it to the mark-band that jumps instantly into your head. Then just give it a mark in the middle of this mark band, and move on without thinking again about it. Don't write actual feedback on each individual paper (that's impossible with so many, even if you work all 24/7), but give the class sample answers and lists of common errors and areas to focus on. It will have the exact same impact as spending ages writing out the same comments over and over again. If that is against your school's policy, then, as said above, find another school.

Please write an email to your manager atleast so there's a paper trail.

Even if he's not teaching the GCSE syllabus at the moment he should be able to pick up some of the marking, the mark schemes are usually very specific. Is one of the papers easier to mark than the others if so give him that one, he should appreciate the opportunity for when he has Year 11 classes.

I think it helps in meetings about workload to add up the hours. I have two year 11 classes , only sitting one paper each- so far less than you . When I am set up and on a roll I can get though 6 to 7 papers an hour - I teach 64 kids in year 11, so looking at about 10 hours marking. Then there is the data entry and feedback report for each child - about 1.5 hours per class so another 3 hours. If you work out how many hours they are asking you do to outside the normal working day- you can then ask them when you are supposed to do this.

I would suggest you say you will mark one paper. The other 2 ( if they have to sit all 3) need to be marked by the kids- a hugely useful exercise for them if done properly. When the kids have to mark something themselves I make a ‘pupil friendly’ version of the mark scheme as the official ones can be hard to navigate.

They could get on with this is a class as you circulate- note common issues ( you probably know what they are likely to be already) and class teach those. Use lessons learned for homework etc. They can’t replace you and therefore are not going to fire you- they have asked you to do an unreasonable thing- you counter with a reasonable solution that also helps the kids. In short I would say - no I will not be doing that, this is why, this is what I will do instead.

Having said all that my SLT are decent people and would never expect that sort of workload in the first place.