SATS marking support

[Welshmonster]

Are there any other KS2 SATS markers on here? I’ve just received the expected pay and for marking 6000 questions I will receive £100 for my troubles before tax. They want me to reach 40% of my 70000 marking target by midnight on Friday.

I’ve spent hours working and barely reached 20% in a week. This is definitely less than minimum wage. I don’t know if I should just quit as it’s insane. They are paid so much money to run the exams but none of it goes to the markers!

is anyone else quitting? Seeing it through?

I possibly could have achieved both if that was my full time job for the marking period. It’s not enough money to live on though. I think it was a penny per question from memory.

If it's £100 for 6000 questions, then at minimum wage that's over 11 questions a minute.

No surprise that the company put it in the contract that you can’t discuss it. Thank you op for sharing.

It’s wrong, this should be in the public domain. I asked my child to take it seriously and ensure they did their best. Shame the company with the contract take their profit more seriously than the accuracy of the results.

Off topic but it’s interesting that schools don’t set from them. As a parent it seems like a waste of a few weeks retesting kids in September after a summer of learning decay when all they seem to do in year 6 is prepare for tests.

The secondary my child is going to sets from year 7 in all subjects using SATS. The GCSE and A-Level Results are excellent, it’s a heavily oversubscribed state school with great progress 8 results. One of the things I liked about it was the fact they put the kids in sets from year 7.

I used to manage to do it purely as I was doing supply at the time and it's that point in the year where cover work naturally tails off so I had more time to do it. However, even with being able to be at it from morning till evening - the updated quotas were getting harder and harder for me to hit. I don't think I could ever have done it while even teaching part-time really.

It's a shame - cos I used to enjoy doing it when we still marked paper scripts and you'd get really quite hooked into rooting for a kid and cheering them on when they scored a particularly picky mark. You lost all of that when it went to online marking and it would just spit out Question 5 after Question 5 after Question 5.

As for maintaining accuracy (at least when I did it) - they would embed "trap" responses into your allocation at random that had already been marked and standardised to make sure you were scoring consistently, and if you "failed" one of those you were locked out of that question until you'd discussed it with your supervisor and had more input on how to score that question. As an experienced marker I used to get loads more of the more complex 3 point type questions - which were much more subjective than those where the kid has to join up responses or tick a yes/no box - which meant so much more of being caught by these benchmark questions and it just got naff.

Last time I marked A-level I calculated the pay was below min wage once you took into account the mandatory training and standardisation. I no longer do it.

My contract also said not to discuss.

This is how they get away with paying unrealistic amounts. Mostly to low paid women, students and the retired.

And as they say (no offence OP), pay peanuts, get monkeys...

Do you work for them? This is how they get away with it and marking is already a shambles as they can’t scan scripts quick enough.

No one is forced to sign a contract to take on a ridiculous workload, but if they choose to do so, they are generally required to abide by the terms of the contract. I don’t work for them now, but if this thread is picked up and they are able to identify you, you may be sacked for gross misconduct. I know someone who was!

But they didn’t make the pay clear at the start. Only after you start doing the work. If they have time to trawl through mumsnet then they are definitely not using public money correctly.

My experience as an exam marker for two different boards was that they absolutely did not make the terms and conditions clear up front. If they did, no-one would do it!

The board I teach are having to employ undergraduates to mark.

You're absolutely right. The pay and hours were not clear at all. I've resigned from marking now. If more markers resigned, they wouldn't get away with it.

It's surely only a matter of time before this stuff gets outsourced to workers in other countries with cheaper labour costs. I wonder if they're actually prohibited from doing that?