Page 2 | Year 3 teacher not marking homework

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cliffdiver · 12/11/2020 06:21

I'm a KS1 teacher.

Whilst I don't mark homework (our school has a no marking policy, we give live feedback) I give a 'well done' type comment in the reading record and respond to any parent questions / feedback.

If I spot a common error / misconception then I will do interventions accordingly.

OutComeTheWolves · 12/11/2020 06:27

It should be marked just really to give credit to the child for their effort.

But homework for primary school kids (other than reading) is not evidence based. And in fact there's evidence emerging that suggests the time at home when children are 'switched off' is when a lot of the days learning is processed and moved from the working to the long term memory.

While I completely agree with you that it should be marked, she is probably resenting the extra drain on her time for something that is done just for the sake of it and has no tangible benefit. Most primary teachers (especially ks1) think their kids work pretty hard at the minute on the catch up curriculum and the time for learning and consolidating that learning is in school. After 3.30 and weekends for a 7 year old should be time for relaxing, reading, spending time with family, baking, playing, doing crafts, going out etc etc - all of which involve learning anyway just not in a formal way.

OverTheRainbow88 · 12/11/2020 06:42

@cliffdiver

How does live feedback work for a 6 year old? How often is it done? How do they remember what you’ve said? Do they then respond to your live feedback and make the changes?

If I spot a common error / misconception then I will do interventions accordingly.
What interventions?

I used to spend 2 weeks writing an essay at secondary school and I stopped trying as hard when all I would get was a written well done- so generic and Unpersonalised. Sometimes even a well done stamp so they didn’t even bother writing the well done!

solidaritea · 12/11/2020 07:13

[quote OverTheRainbow88]@cliffdiver

How does live feedback work for a 6 year old? How often is it done? How do they remember what you’ve said? Do they then respond to your live feedback and make the changes?

If I spot a common error / misconception then I will do interventions accordingly.
What interventions?

I used to spend 2 weeks writing an essay at secondary school and I stopped trying as hard when all I would get was a written well done- so generic and Unpersonalised. Sometimes even a well done stamp so they didn’t even bother writing the well done![/quote]
As 6 year olds are still learning to read, live feedback is far more effective as you can ensure that the child has understood the comment. You can then ensure that they act on it by practising a relevant skill.

When looking at a set of maths books, if I find that the majority of the class has misunderstood simplifying fractions, I'll reteach it and get them to check their mistakes. If 7 children have misunderstood how to use semicolons, I'll bring them together as a group, reteach it and get them to put it into practise. If 1 child hasn't used apostrophes correctly, I might write a comment with a next step. It's such a waste writing the same comment in half a dozen books.

How often is it done? All day every day. It informs all teaching.
How do they remember what you've said? The same way they remember anything - modelling, guided practice, independent practice.
Do they respond?
Yes

What works for teaching 16 year olds isn't the best practice for 11 year olds, and definitely not for 6 year olds.

OverTheRainbow88 · 12/11/2020 07:24

@solidaritea

Thank you, sounds good.

I was genuinely interested

montlieu · 12/11/2020 11:56

@OverTheRainbow88
you have absolutely nailed it ! thank you
I think it is also question of mutual respect as well.
Primary school children generally love their teachers so it matters to them a lot.

as a parent, I look at the marking and make sure my child has seen it, understand it and will try and follow the recommendations. I find the WWW and EBI really effective.
a simple tick can be very disheartening for a child who has spent 45 minutes on a piece of writing or comprehension

we are in worse situation as our teacher does not even touch the HW books at the moment.
However, he tutors face to face in other families houses !

ZolaGrey · 12/11/2020 13:02

@missbunnyrabbit

I'm a year 1 teacher. I work at least 12 hours on a school day. I really struggle to find time to mark homework, there are simply more important things to be done. It is soooooo easy and ignorant for parents to slag teachers off for not doing this or that. Trust me, we are working very hard and doing the best we can. Something has to give. And, for me, as most children are sat with their parents when doing their homework, there is no desperate need for me to mark it too.

I shouldn't read threads like this, makes me so mad how ignorant people are

I hope the majority of people don't think the way people do on these threads. I don't and nor do the parents at my school who I socialise with.

Personally I think homework at primary is almost entirely pointless, and as far as I'm aware research back this, so I wouldn't get your knickers in a twist about doing nor it being marked.

SolarPlanner · 14/11/2020 14:54

Marking in general is an extremely ineffective way of giving feedback. I went to school in Sweden, and have nieces and nephews attending school there now, where marking is never done. Not only do they not give written feedback for homework, but they don't mark classwork either. It doesn't mean no one learns. If the teacher notices a lot of children got the same thing wrong then they probably re-taught it in the next class. They might be working one-to-one with individuals who got things wrong.
If you think your child is falling behind, speak to the teacher. If you're just worried you're not getting your money's worth of time and attention then let it go. It's also worth remembering that every minute the teacher does not waste marking homework (which the child might have been distracted while doing or recieved help with, so it is not a reliable measure of attainment) is an extra minute they can spend doing something useful like planning or making resources.

woolff · 14/11/2020 15:02

Teachers are not required to mark every piece of work.

Homework, especially, is done independently and usually as practice or consolidation of something already taught; it is usually a building block to something more that will be assessed, with feedback provided (again, not necessarily given a 'mark', unless the teacher decides this is beneficial).

OverTheRainbow88 · 14/11/2020 15:24

If the teacher notices a lot of children got the same thing wrong

How would the teacher notice without marking homework or glasswork?

OverTheRainbow88 · 14/11/2020 15:27

@woolff

Teachers are not required to mark every piece of work.

OP.... however no feedback is ever given or grading ever given.

EVER...

letssayit · 14/11/2020 15:52

@TeeA06

Hi all my DS is in yr3 and homework is set on google classroom, however no feedback is ever given or grading ever given. I spoke with his teacher over the phone with regards to this. She explained that she speaks with them during free time during the week.

I checked with my son and he said she never does. This is a worry for me as I do not want my son to slip through the crack.

How do I go about tackling this without singling out my son.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you

That's my experience as well. Teachers never mark the homework. So weird. But when I spoke to them they had good track on how he is progressing. So looks like they don't bother with checking homework as it's extra paperwork or something. Very few other parents were bothered by this at our school, so that surprised me more. A parent from another school said this is not the norm. I tried reaching out to school, they gave homework books later but didn't really mark it. Only 1 or 2 teachers marked the homework. I think those were the really diligent ones.

Another issue I was having was my son often forgot to take book out his bag and hand to the teacher which was a problem. But the teachers never follow up either. So they miss checking his homework and don't realise it either.

SolarPlanner · 14/11/2020 16:04

Overtherainbow, there are lots and lots of ways of assessing understanding without marking books. For example, giving the children small whiteboards to answer questions on and then show the teacher, games like kahoot, exit tickets, having the children self-assess / mark their own work / mark each other's work, putting a wrong answer on the board and having the children explain why it's wrong or even things as simple as looking at the work the children are doing as they work independently or asking them to explain. Marking is amongst the worst forms of formative assessment because there is always such a long delay between the activity and the feedback.

Mover437 · 15/11/2020 00:03

[quote OverTheRainbow88]@woolff

Teachers are not required to mark every piece of work.

OP.... however no feedback is ever given or grading ever given.

EVER...[/quote]
No written feedback is given. Verbal feedback is more effective. The problem seems to be that the agreed verbal feedback isn't being given. However, that's only a problem if there are issues with the child's learning.

A 6 year olds work of course wouldn't be graded.

PresentingPercy · 15/11/2020 09:04

Most schools have homework policies. I would read that and then see what the school thinks about homework. What people think here is actuality irrelevant. If they say the teacher will mark it, they should. There might be other info in the policy about assessment and feedback. It’s what your school thinks that matters. If they hsve changed the method of giving homework, the policy should have been tweaked and parents informed. If they don’t hsve a homework policy, then I’m afraid the teacher can do what they want but that wouldn’t be a well run school in my view. Parents and teachers should have the same info about homework and stick to it.

JessHamersteen · 17/11/2020 15:22

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wasgoingmadinthecountry · 17/11/2020 18:43

My TA marks the homework (she seems to like to do it and is very experienced). Will then flag up any misconceptions to me - normally it's maths consolidation, grammar and a short comprehension - and we use Friday morning work for "corrections" etc before sending it home with the new stuff. Grammar I will do a mini input on if there are issues.

missbunnyrabbit · 18/11/2020 18:42

[quote OverTheRainbow88]@missbunnyrabbit

Yes let’s call parents ignorant for wanting their kids homework to be marked occasionally.

Maybe the parent spends half a Saturday trying to engage their kid to do it so would like the kid to get some feedback so it doesn’t make it even harder to get the kid to do it.

Kids get detentions in my school for not doing homework, imagine if I then didn’t mark the work done, none would do it so then I would be holding detentions for whole classes!

Please don’t call parents ignorant.[/quote]
@OverTheRainbow88

Yes, you are ignorant. How much time do you think teachers have?

gsha · 19/11/2020 17:12

I learnt during the lockdown that one of my primary school children's maths work was not marked at all (even in-school work). In that my child was shocked when after about 1 month of home schooling I started marking his maths for him and asking him to have another go if he got a question incorrect (I did this as the work wasn't permitted to be sent to school to be marked due to covid and I thought what's the point of him doing it if no one is marking it so I started marking it myself). When I started doing this he told me his teacher never did this and he was upset initially by his work being marked! He said instead the teacher chooses random maths questions to go through with the whole class, which means he never knew if he got a particular question right or wrong. I found this very odd, particularly as he is good at maths so a teacher would not have to worry about discouraging by telling him he got say 1 question out of 10 incorrect. I haven't raised it with the school as I don't like raising things with school generally. Instead I bought a couple of Maths books myself and from time to time he does a few questions and I mark them for him (using the answer sheets at the back).

OverTheRainbow88 · 19/11/2020 17:18

@missbunnyrabbit

I’m a secondary teacher, teaching 5 different exam classes. I find time to mark the homework they’ve given to their time to do.

Maybe you need to become for efficient with your time keeping.

Hercwasonaroll · 19/11/2020 17:26

@OverTheRainbow88 All the evidence is that targeted immediate verbal feedback is the most effective.

I look at students homework on teams and leave a small comment (maths) but don't attempt to correct any mistakes or misconceptions. I leave that for the lesson time when I can model and explain things.

Not marking books this year has changed very little of my understanding about where my students are at. Reams of written feedback is neither necessary or useful.

I use whole class feedback a lot. Which some students probably say 'miss doesn't mark anything'. I do mark assessment pieces 3 times a term.

Written feedback for a 7yo would be overkill. Best to target specifics verbally in class.

GuyFawkesDay · 19/11/2020 17:35

@OverTheRainbow88 you're secondary....so am I.

I wouldn't dream of telling primary colleagues how to do their job because I'd bet you'd be pretty miffed if they told you how to do yours.

PPs are correct, verbal feedback is more effective.

Unmarked doesn't mean not looked at. I may well flick through work in books, make notes of who needs what comments/interventions and do them verbally. In no Covid times I had coaching sessions with pupils where I'd go round and talk them through work 1 to 1 whilst others got on with tasks

OverTheRainbow88 · 19/11/2020 17:40

@GuyFawkesDay

I wasn’t telling them, I was asking, no judgements made, purely interested.

I did however tell one not to call parents ignorant, that is unnecessary

GuyFawkesDay · 19/11/2020 17:42

Telling someone their timekeeping needs improvement was unnecessary.

I'd have thought you might have at least tried to be supportive.

Hercwasonaroll · 19/11/2020 17:44

The comment about timekeeping was rude. I wouldn't tell another subject how to mark effectively beyond don't do reams of it and don't spend ages on it.

As a PP said, unmarked doesn't mean not looked at.