Do teachers not mark books anymore?

[Heckythump1]

DD just finishing Y2, brought home all her books yesterday (including some Y1 books that were kept for moderation) not a single thing has been marked? No spellings have been corrected? There's the odd tick here and there, mainly in the maths books.

Is that normal? Her spelling is awful, which I suspect isn't helped by never being told she's spelling the same words incorrectly over and over again!

Tbh, I left teaching early as I was so exhausted and ended up with a serious autoimmune disease because of burn out. I probably, like many teachers of my generation, overdid the marking. However, no marking at all seems odd to me. I was not virtue signalling and genuinely believe that marking can be constructive and helpful, especially with a subject like English. I also believe that verbal feedback is of equal, even superior, value. Why not use both? When a child is in Year 2, surely stickers and ticks are good for symbolic, positive reinforcement.

We follow this verbal and a few ticks….nightmare because wrong spelling continues. Therefore we had a 3 private 1 to 1 tutor sessions to mark and explain and drill. We tried to do this as parents but had DC saying it is fine, teacher told me. No, not a less than 2 mins verbal in 3 weeks. Does not work with DC.

Marking is deeply ingrained in British culture, but has been shown over and over again to be a waste of time, a totally ineffective way of helping children progress, and inefficient use of teacher time. Most education systems in the word have no marking. More and more British schools are taking the line of limiting or abolishing marking. In my school we mark tests only. Other work is self assessed, and that is so much more effective than a teacher marking work. Peppering books with "well done" etc either makes children dependent on external praise, or if they are getting too much of it, just making them suspicious and distrustful of it. Generic "well done"s etc should never be used, praise should be meaningful and specific.

Teaching spellings has also been shown to be useless. Spelling is necessarily progressive and improves with age and reading. It’s also a memory test. Concentrating on common exception words is probably wise. Homework doesn’t work. Marking is useless. It appears the only thing that does work is relationships with your children, in the minute corrections and verbally discussing the error and direct feedback on how to change it.

They also ask children about how they know they are learning, how their teacher lets them know how they are doing and what they need to do to progress . If the school has a clear policy about feedback/ marking/ target setting then OFSTED will be aware of how the school monitors this, and if it is effective. Schools where children are actively involved in the process and are used to meaningful feedback being given, usually find it encourages the children to be aware of their progress and to be able to articulate it.

It is schools where ticks, well dones, good job!, and other random remarks are scattered across the page where children are often not aware of what they need to do to progress.

Different schools have different policies. Better school leaders resist the pressure from some parents (as well as from some teachers who simply can’t imagine anything other than written marking) to insist that all worked is marked by the teacher, with a pen, so that the parent can see that it has been done.
Efficient teachers give feedback during the lesson, while learning is taking place, because that is when it is likely to be the most effective. Imagine you’re 6 years old and in a maths class. Do you want to look at a bunch of crosses the day after a lesson on adding ten, or do you want to make a mistake or two, have a short chat with your teacher or TA & perhaps a demo, and then have them watch you try again, then feel confident when they walk away because you know that you understand how it works now?

Well regarded, researched guidance on effective feedback - much more professional than the views of mumsnet. 😉

https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/feedback

In an average day, I teach maths, eng, guided reading in the morning then at least 2 more subjects in the afternoon. So 5 books per child per day.
33 children x 5 = 165 books to mark every day. Even assuming we allocate a very minimal 2 minutes per book, that is 330 minutes of marking. That's 5 and a half hours per day of marking.

In my class, certain subjects like Maths I try to live mark (walk around ticking/giving feedback as I go but this wouldn't be written in their books)

Most subjects I go through the books and note common errors/misconceptions and use this to inform my planning of the next session. This would be noted down on a class feedback sheet, not in individual books. Any children who really have not understood, I put their books to one side for intervention later. Again, doesn't mean this would be written in their books.

Written feedback does not benefit children. It takes way too much teacher time and they don't read it anyway!! Far better to use my time actually addressing issues than writing about them.

Doesn't mean the books shouldn't have some ticks/acknowledgement but not in depth marking. Also we have a learning ticket at the top of the piece of work where we just circle/tick whether they did it independently or with help and whether they have good understanding or are only beginning to understand.

Spellings are assessed and marked separately in a different place. The work you’ve seen will probably have had a different learning objective, for example to use adjectives. In that case the spelling is secondary. Children gradually learn the spellings and use them in their work.

But...

1. you have exactly the same info seeing the spelling mistake as you did with the spelling marked? And it's at the end of the year
2. And if you only see books at the end of the year, is that useful?
3. Yes verbal and whole class feedback marking policies are becoming increasingly used, supported by research evidence.
4. Mostly because children don't actually learn much by having spellings in books corrected.
5. Parents who are not teachers put far too much store in correcting spellings in books- I think it's because it's the 'visible' part of the job they remember from being in school themselves. They will have specific objectives and targets for each piece of work and verbal feedback will relate to that.

BUT

1. You should have been better informed on what those specific objectives and targets your daughter is working towards are.

Ours take spellings home. There is a list for each year group.

Not a recent thing, my kids were getting the same 15 years ago. Even in spelling books, the words were sometimes ticked even when they were wrong!

One of my daughters thought her teacher was akin to God, and I had a hard job convincing her that the dictionary and I were right and the ticked spellings were wrong. Infuriating.

Our school do this in Infants (YR-Y2) once they get to Y3 and up they have comments, it's because younger can't easily read and understand it so any comments are more for parents who don't see the books until end of year anyway so no help.

I guess this is why we have so many adults who cannot spell and use incorrect words because they don’t know the meaning of the words. Even people with very good degrees. Good habits start early and I’m delighted DD could spell and use the 120 breakthrough words in YR. Worked for her but 25 years ago now. Spelling still matters. I do think correct spelling can be pointed out when an intelligent DC is young.

Agree! DC had been allowed to misspell words in early primary and with certain words continues to do so. If written words are not corrected and never shown the actual spellings they don’t think it is a mistake.

In the school I am in the teachers do mark. The children also mark their buddy’s work (not always correctly lol). When I home school the best learning often comes from understanding what went wrong and working through the correct process to a wrong answer. So I think there is merit to marking but perhaps only when it collects data or enables the educator to do further work with the child to fill in gaps if knowledge.

Not spelling correctly is a gap in knowledge. For some adults it’s bigger then it should be. It means they cannot be trusted to send out reports and documents without someone else reading them first.

Our kids books always come back corrected, commented,
marked. Perhaps there are other ways??

I mark everything. We would get pulled up harshly if we didn't.

I think it's very unkind to not mark children's work. A comment such as excellent work, or great effort means so much. The child can look back at their books and be motivated, long after they have forgotten you told them their work was good in a noisy classroom 4 months ago. And it has a permanence and significance when comments are written. People tend to focus on the negative, but those written comments can remind children of their successes. I am so surprised teachers can't see the importance of it.

Yep. I'm super unkind because I don't write comments on the work of my class.

It's not because I have considered the evidence (see above) and have decided (with the support of my school) to instead prioritize other things, such as having short conversations with each child regularly to ensure they feel nurtured, planning productive and memorable lessons that are inclusive of the huge range of need in my class, supporting newer teachers, planning school trips and experiences, enhancing my pedagogical knowledge, supporting children through bereavement or adverse experiences, etc, etc, etc

@Jwhb Honestly, a child works really hard on something and yet all their books are returned at the end of the year with no comment. For parents and children it just looks like their work was never seen, and the teacher was not interested in their ideas. There is no record they can see of their progress, no response to their efforts other than some things you may have said that they have now forgotten. I don't think you are unkind - I don't know you- but a policy of refusing to give written comments on children's work is unkind. Unintentionally, I suspect, but the results are the same.

Than.

The children were in class. They'll know they worked with the teacher/TA and that they were given support or comments, even if they don't remember it specifically.

They can see their progress in their work. Presentation, quantity, quality etc. 10th of September will look very different to 10th of July.

While I don't think whole books with nothing from a teacher are ok, verbal feedback is actually a very useful and beneficial tool.

Let’s swap jobs and see how you get on with your 13 weeks a year holiday. I am sick of the ignorance. Clearly you’ve put this comment as a wind up (surely there are better things to be doing), because if you haven’t, you need to go and spend a bit of time in a school.