Marked work - NO positive/encouraging comments - normal?

[EarthboundMisfit]

Hello. Feeling a bit sad for Y1 DS today. He brought all his school exercise books home tonight. I've enjoyed looking at his work, but am a bit upset by the marking.

He's doing well at school... lots of 'mastery' on his report. But on every piece of work all that's been written by his teacher is what to improve. 'Watch this' 'Slow down' 'Try to do x' etc.

I nearly fainted when I saw a smiley face next to one piece. It was an evaluation of a junk model he made at home and spent hours on. The comment was - 'you have done well at evaluating how you could improve your model'.

There's one piece of work marked by a Y2 teacher who covered their class. It's nice...it has a 'well done, you've done a great job of x', followed by a suggestion for how to improve.

All I can think is that if I'd received that marking for a year I'd feel like shit about myself.

Am I being unreasonable and PFB? Is this normal?

Thanks.

At ds's secondary school teachers write - www (ie what went well) then a comment
ebi (even better if) then a comment.

Too much for year 1 I know but the principle should be the same - a constructive critique of a piece of work.

How do you equate not using the 2 stars and a wish method to "rubbishing" a child nothing could e further from the truth.

I am also a sucker for positive praise, Polly.

Just don't pull a luminous pink highlighter over the bits you like first!

Seriously, I'm genuinely sorry you're upset over anything on this thread. You will need to develop a much thicker skin for this job though

I've only ever been in one classroom (and he was in the wrong job) where the teacher wasn't using positive praise throughout every single lesson ...only it's not always written down. Children thrive on deserved praise they aren't fools.

They say that in their guidance but the reality from the inspectors is very different. We were told there needs to be evidence. this is the problem, inspectors demand evidence of everything. Evidence that you have greeted the children at the door, if they don't see it it has to be written down Evidence of staff conforming to dress code, scores have to be given, records have to be kept, evidence that children's spelling has improved, ( in their maths lessons,), so tests, standards and progress has to be recorded ( by their maths teacher) etc

Don't expect rational thought or consistency from ofsted

How do you equate not using the 2 stars and a wish method to "rubbishing" a child nothing could e further from the truth. its a total insult to their intelligence, that's why, and it teaches them that praise from a teacher has no value

www (ie what went well) then a comment
ebi (even better if) then a comment.

This is the exact system that my kids class went on strike about, and refused point blank to accept any work back with this on. Because they found it insulting and patronising, a waste of their time and education.

Depends how constructive the praise is - kids at my school pore over their teacher's comments and are usually excited to get their work back. Not Y1 though, they're all about the verbal praise.

yes, nothing wrong with constructive praise, but something very wrong with "praise quotas" in any format

I don't agree , actually. it's just rude to read anyone's work and not say anything positive and then constructive. That's my job, to know what a child can do and what they need to learn next. There's no reason not to share that knowledge with the children. There's every reason not to write that down in Year 1 though.

My post was to poly

This is fascinating! I have spoken to my DS and he says his teacher 'mostly' says good things about his work to him.

In Y1 most feedback will be verbal. "Live time" teacher response is much more effective at any age.

I might say "wow that's a great story opener ...will you read it to the class?" Child feels proud and other children get a hood model to use in their work.

I write on child's work * great opener child might read it next time they write a story (or might not) ..

Makes sense.

Totally agree.

Good not hood obviously

This board has stopped me stewing over this for about a week 😁...invaluable. Thanks.

Long lost - why on earth would anyone find it patronising for a teacher to say what the best thing about a piece of work is? And how are students going to improve if they aren't told what would have got them higher marks? 'Patronising' suggests the students already know this. I think it's an excellent system which works well at my sons' school. I've never heard any complaints other than when it's not used.

DS1's first school was excellent for this sort of thing - DS1 has unbelievably bad handwriting - yet, his work all had comments about the content if it was good, or reminders on some aspect of his writing. Rather than following some kind of formal '2 stars and a wish' approach, they just knew the kids, and if they'd had to be a bit negative about a couple of bits of work, they made sure that they found something positive somewhere else. It really worked for DS, his writing was slowly improving, but he was up with the rest of the class for everything, and ahead on reading.

Then we moved, and he went to a new school. His new teacher had the kids (5 and 6 year olds) swap books for marking, his book was filled with crosses, the kids couldn't read his writing, and complained to the teacher, he had trouble learning the routines (so did I, communication was appalling) so he was lucky if he got a new reading book once a week, and he turned into this withdrawn, quiet, unconfident kid in a matter of weeks! I actually went back and read the workbooks books from his previous school to remind me what good teaching looked like.

This sounds like what's happened at your school. Just pray the next teacher is better (they want to keep DS1 down a year, with his current teacher - over my dead body - I'm just hoping the damage done to his enjoyment of school can be rectified!)

And he independently read them ?

What has your DS said about the feedback he's received from his teacher during Y1? If his response is that s/he hasn't said anything all year and that the occasional written feedback is all he's received, then I'd be worried. However, I suspect that's unlikely.

Meanwhile, I'd be celebrating the fact that you were given your child's exercise books to bring home at all. My DDs' school is so busy being 'outstanding' that at the end of the year, the covers are removed from their exercise books and the inner pages put in a skip. I hate this with a passion but the reason given by the Head is that otherwise parents complain about the marking/lack of. I'm a teacher myself and have no desire to complain about anyone's marking but would love to have a few of my DDs' books to see how their writing etc changes over the years.

Thing os about 2 stars and a wish, I know that was the sort of thing that my perfectionist dd in year R would have looked at and said, "well, mummy, that have to say two good things, so they don't count, but the wish is what's wrong."

SE13, I confess I hadn't asked him when I started this post...he was in bed. When I did ask him, he said she was very positive verbally.

Throwing away work like that is so sad. I love looking through it. Mind you, they did remove their reading diaries at the end of the year, just as they did in YR. However, they returned the Reception ones at the same time...a year on. Not sure I'll keep those!

We do two stars and a wish.
It is encouragement :. " *well done you remembered most finger spaces.
*Super use of adjectives
(Pic of magic wand) Please try to keep your writing on the line"

Followed up by 'next steps' to help them achieve their targets.

How is that not helpful ?

Can the child read what you've written?