Marking - lack of

[onceamai]

Have checked through dd's school books during the last week or two. Have noticed that the following subjects have not been marked since March: Science, RE, Spanish, Geography, Design & Technology. DD says I mustn't complain about this because the teachers have been busy getting the Y11's ready for GCSE's. I think it's disgraceful and that if the children spend time doing homework then teachers should have a) the courtesy to mark it and b) ensure that misunderstanding is not becoming embedded.

I was at school in the 1970s and we had PSHCE - it was called Social Education. Some children also did General Studies.

My Maths teacher was the same one all five years - she was the best, you see - so took top set (the care for outcomes fell as your set got lower) and even though we were the golden kids, when she left to have a baby, we were given all of year 5 with a supply teacher who gave out past papers or exercises and, when we had finished, we marked them ourselves

Teaching is so much better nowadays and, while there are times when teachers appear to not be perfect, they quite likely are trying to be - just with a different year group.

Year 5 being year 11!

If teachers arn't marking work how do they know children are doing it?

Sorry if it's a stupid question, but thinking back to when i was at school I wasn't a great student (I had other things going on, not because i was a 'bad kid') but if i had thought there was a chance my teacher wouldn't have marked my homework i simply wouldn't have done it.

I the OP's situation, when the teacher's for those lesson's finally did get around to marking my work they'd find 3 months worth of empty work books.. As it stood, my homework was marked weekly any set was usually handed in on the due day and pretty much always returned by the next lesson. Even then i probabally did only about 50% of the homework set the rest of the time i was happy to accept detention rather than do it.

What worry's me is that while i agree teaching standards have improved since i was at school, how do teachers know if a student is struggling if they don't mark thier work??

They will find out, after exam season.

In our time no one cared about results. The results were our own and not the schools. Probably why our schools were often so dire! (comprehensive top set of 10 sets and I got 6 o levels).

Nowadays there is a lot more effort put into the exam season for year 10 (yes it starts that early) and 11. There is only 24 hours a day, so some things have to wait.

I also think it would be better to not set any but some school policies require it to be set. Parents also complain if homework isn't set! Teachers cannot win.

Im not a teacher but a parent governor and what I have learnt about teaching workloads since being elected three years ago has been a real eye opener.

I'm amazed any of you think teaching standards have improved. But I suppose I went to secondary in 1971 and we had the last of the previous generation of teachers who instilled into us a secure academic grounding in: English (lang and lit), maths, geography, history, biology, chemistry, physics, French, Latin, German and Art. RE was studied as a non exam subject and I guess covered pshe. I think it went pear shaped in the 1980's and 90's. I certainly have difficulty employing anyone between the ages of 30 and 40 who is able to write correctly and coherently but do agree those younger than 30 do seem to have a better grasp of what I would call functional literacy and numeracy skills.