Marking school work

[Floatyboat]

So apparently the teaching unions think marking should not take place due to "health and safety". Surely this is straying into the territory of unhelpful disruption rather than constructive engagement with the government's wish to help kids.

There are so many work arounds to do it safely. Wait 48hrs to mark, wear gloves, wash hands etc

Given they are arguing this I can't help but think the unions are simply being unreasonable and not actually taking a balanced view.

It’s not that unreasonable to think that books might be a pretty serious risk of infection given that children breath all over them for fairly significant periods of time.

Why not just leave it a couple of days before marking them? Surely that's really easy

I’ve just scoured my union guidance for this and can’t find it anywhere? Is this even true? Is it just one union that has advised this?

In all honestly, our school is only going to be doing well being and form tutor type activities with kids, so the idea of marking anything is probably irrelevant anyway.

Not sure if this is just a way to try to divide and conquer. The government making teaching staff sound unreasonable again. This is the first I’ve heard of this.

It isn't the fault of the teachers, but I do think that some form of feedback should be given.

48hrs to mark, wear gloves, wash hands

Leaving books 48 hours before marking would have 0 impact so would be pointless, kids need feedback asap on their work to make it effective marking,.it should always be marked before the next lesson, this allows you to see who gets the work, who needs more support, who needs pushing on - 48 hours later is too late and therefore pointless as you'd be 2 lessons further on.

Gloves and washing hands - unless you change gloves or wash hands at the end of every single book you are spreading germs between the books (cross contamination) and risk spreading infection from one child to another.

We've been told at our school we won't be marking books. Didn't know it was a union thing.

@DBML

I don't know what year you teach but surely setting a bit of work and checking it to pick up issues before the holiday etc would be useful.

I’m giving remote feedback constantly via Google Classroom. Not just ‘well done’, but ‘a star and a wish’ type feedback to help learners progress. All learners have to submit work, act on feedback and resubmit. No work is ever just banked.

When learning resumes in school, I will mark the work there too. This is pure nonsense now, to make villains of the teaching profession. Probably so no one complains when they freeze our pay again come next year.

FloatyBoat the guidance is to avoid marking physical books. Just like the government guidance says children should not take books home. Doesn’t mean we cannot mark electronically and that is what we are planning for.

I'm marking their work online, giving feedback via our online platforms. (Secondary)

My son's teacher is marking his work online via their platforms. (Primary)

I doubt many students are doing work in a book, how would this be handed in? Are they travelling in once a week to drop off their work at school? I don't think so.

Marking and feedback is mostly online, probably will be for a long time, it's quicker and safer for all parties involved.

@Floatyboat

I was talking about the fact that there is no intention to do learning with classes who return to school. The nature of options subjects and inability to mix groups makes it impossible for now.

Marking continues as standard on Google Classroom. There is no shortage of it there.

I also remember a funny tweet once about a teacher that contacted his whole class after marking a set of books and dropping his bag of peanuts over them all.

He was really concerned that the peanut dust would leave traces and a student may have a peanut allergy.

So touching books and exchanging them is not sensible when we are trying to stop transfer of a virus.

Good lord how are teachers coping with shopping? Have their unions told them not to go as, well you know, those products are touched by zillions of people.

To the OP who says 'don't blame the teachers' - when I hear them standing up to their union when they say things that are ridiculous then I will not blame them. Whilst some of them continue to work absolutely to rule - 'we can't do this that the other', I'm afraid I will take a dim view of them.

Brake, an individual teacher can't and won't change whole school policy. It really is not their fault. I personally think it's unfair on children who have gone to the trouble of doing work to get little to no feedback, but that doesn't mean I blame the individual teachers.

I could only upload three images. Here is a fraction of the assignments I’ve set and the marking completed. Obviously I can only mark work for those who have engaged and completed the task, which is a fraction of the school population.
But I set regular assignments and mark those I get back in promptly. Twice, when you factor in a resubmission.

No teacher is going to blanket say no to marking. Assessment is crucial for informing planning.

But surely the children will need to continue to use the books the next day. If the teacher waits 2 days, marks the books, then waits another 2 days to give them back to the children incase they have infected them themselves, children would only be able to write in their books once every 5 days .

DS’s work is currently marked online via google classroom. He’s in year 6 so to be fair, there won’t be much actual work to mark if he does go back and his teacher is already writing reports.

Some are, DBML. I'm NOT blaming them, but some schools are refusing to mark any work at all.

@brakethree

and how am I supposed to “stand up to my union”, when my union has given no such advice and I’m marking every bit of work that comes in anyway?

Oh and I should add that the government are not providing PPE for teachers, so where will the gloves come from? Teachers own pockets, as usual!

Glad to hear everyone thinks it's ridiculous and marking anyway. Why then does the union say this. Surely it is counterproductive as it makes otherwise sympathetic people think they're motivated by self interest.

@ahorsecalledseptember

So those schools should be dealt with on an individual basis.
It’s not fair for such generic complaints to be thrown around, when some of us (the majority) are working extremely hard.

@Floatyboat

As I have said once...I’ve checked my unions guidance and they do not say this.

You can just set work on worksheets, wait two days, mark them. Older kids can do it online, but surely younger ones who are still learning to write need to be putting pen to paper and get feedback on what they're doing.

I haven't seen this?

This applies to worksheets too....
Leaving books 48 hours before marking would have 0 impact so would be pointless, kids need feedback asap on their work to make it effective marking,.it should always be marked before the next lesson, this allows you to see who gets the work, who needs more support, who needs pushing on - 48 hours later is too late and therefore pointless as you'd be 2 lessons further on.

Glad to hear everyone thinks it's ridiculous and marking anyway. Why then does the union say this.

I don’t know what you are reading but the unions have not said no to marking. They have said no to marking books, which follows on from the government guidance provided...