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Secondary education

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Original poster

Dd in year 7 - how often should books be marked?

30 replies

CeliaFate · 02/06/2012 20:20

Dd has brought home books when she's had homework/revision. Last week I went through her history book with her to test her for end of year exams. The book hadn't been marked at all this term - the last time it was marked was in March.
Is this usual? Or just for some subjects. I was shocked it was left so long before being marked.

OP posts:
Kez100 · 02/06/2012 20:31

There has been another thread on here recently asking exactly the same thing with answers from teachers and parents.

My experience (I have a year 9 and one just finished year 11) is that this time of year is dedicated to the GCSE students. Teachers bend over backwards to help and provide after school revision classes. There is only 24 hours in a day, and marking of other years- however unfair it might seem - just cannot fit in the time given.

One example - my daughter had a wobble on Poetry on the day of her GCSE exam a week or so ago. She went to see her English teacher in the morning who was marking books. The Teacher dropped the marking and spent some considerable time helping her confidence. There were probably 20 books not marked because of this but - on balance - I expect most parents taking an overall view would agree it was the right priority.

Original poster
CeliaFate · 02/06/2012 20:44

Thanks Kez, I'll look for that thread.
I understand that exams take priority, but how can you revise when you're not sure if what you've done is right if it hasn't been marked iyswim?

OP posts:
Loshad · 02/06/2012 20:50

Celia, i'd be delighted if i actually thought most pupils read my marking points Shock
depends on the schools marking policy - ours is every six contacts, so if your dd's was marked at the end of the spring term, and she has 1 history lesson/week (quite likely - i see my y8's 3 lessons/fortnight) then her teacher actually is not very far behind on the marking. Kez is right too, this time of year is manic, and i am concentrating on my y10/11/12/13s who all have major public exams over the may/june period.
If you are concerned then i would suggest purchasing a KS3 revision guide to help over the exam period - that would be really useful.

Original poster
CeliaFate · 02/06/2012 20:55

I'm a primary teacher, so I'm used to having to mark every piece of work every day or there's ructions!
Dd is a very conscientious student - she has been going to the library during breaktimes to revise for the next exam, bless her. I certainly didn't do that ever in year 7!

OP posts:
FashionEaster · 02/06/2012 21:03

Last weekend I sat and marked my year 7 books for 4 hours as they have been sorely neglected on that front for many weeks as year 10 (controlled assessments), 11 and 12 (exams) have taken priority and I was getting up at 4am to mark and just couldn't squeeze yr 7 amongst all the timed essays. They now have the full glare of my attention and look quite startled! It isn't fair and frustrating for you and dd certainly - she certainly should have been given some revision pointers.

ClaireAll · 02/06/2012 21:07

My DD is in year 8 and her books are taken in and marked on a weekly basis.

She seems to have a weekly timetable where homework is set, handed in, marked and returned with helpful comments.

Ouluckyduck · 02/06/2012 21:12

As a German, and a former teacher, I think that the marking of books is utter madness. When I was a teacher I had over 250 students. If I spent 5 mins on every book that was 20 hours a week just on marking books! In Germany books were never marked. Homework was discussed in class and then self-marked.

PooshTun · 02/06/2012 23:15

We have a state secondary school at the top of our road which is rated quite highly by OFSTED and local parents. When my DS was in Year 5 I asked my neighbour (her DC goes there) for the inside track. She was saying that the homework was rarely marked. So mentioned this at the parents evening and the teachers that she spoke to all had the standard line i.e. not enough time to regularly mark 30 sets of homework.

We spoke to parents with DCs at other schools and they said the same thing about their schools.

I accept the points put forward by posters here i.e. 30 x 5 mins x several classes = large chunk of your time but my neighbour was saying that once her DC realised that the homework most likely wasn't going to get marked, the DC stopped putting much effort into it. So if homework isn't going to get marked then there isn't much in setting it in the first place.

There were other reasons but this was was one of the main reasons why we decided to privately educate our DCs. They get 3 pieces of homework most days and they always gets marked. As a result DCs puts lots of effort into it so that they can earn Merits.

cardibach · 02/06/2012 23:22

Ouluckyduck I think I may have to move to Germany!

Ouluckyduck · 02/06/2012 23:43

Well ideally you'd hope they would do the homework to advance their learning not to get merits...

ravenAK · 03/06/2012 05:02

I teach English.

School policy is to mark books every fortnight. In practice, that usually becomes once or twice, depending on where assessed pieces of work fall, during each half term, & then again over the holidays, when I always get all books up to date. So 'worst case scenario' would be 3 weeks.

Having said that, in the run up to GCSEs, I might well set a practice essay question for both my year 11 groups (55 students). Marking & giving detailed feedback on that alone would then take me 6-10 hours, so three evenings' work - at which point the KS3 marking takes a hit, I'm afraid.

If students have done work which needs an assessment level/grade, it always gets marked & returned well within the fortnight - if it's a case of 'flick & tick'ing notes or preparation work, that's when it goes on the back burner.

PooshTun · 03/06/2012 07:38

oulucky - You obviously have a superior class of children in Germany.

Ouluckyduck · 03/06/2012 08:49

No, but a greater expectation of pupils to take charge of their learning, and not to be spoon fed everything.

PooshTun · 03/06/2012 09:35

Who said anything about being spoon fed? I was talking about motivating children.

l don't expect 11 year olds to respond to an environment when they are told to spend their non school time studying for something and then not to get any individual feedback at all.

Anyway, as I've said, I'm glad that my kids are at a place where the teachers share my values.

danceswithyarn · 03/06/2012 09:42

I always thought that good manners would mean the same length of time for marking shod be taken but the teacher to mark work as they had given the dcs to do the work.

ClaireAll · 03/06/2012 10:08

Do you mean that, say, the homework takes 20 minutes to do, the teacher should take 20 minutes to mark each student's work, or 20 minutes to mark the whole class' work?

Wolfiefan · 03/06/2012 10:12

My school specifies books should be marked once a fortnight. Not marking homework devalues it. (I don't blame a student who then sees it as not important and does not do it!)
Sometimes students do a HW and then use it in class in a piece of work to be marked, occasionally it is for display and rewards given. It is hard to mark revision! My Y7 recently devised a quiz for HW. The marking was them trying the quiz in class and us discussing how it worked. I believe that most HW should be marked though.
Books not marked since March? June now! So if that student has completely misunderstood something then that has not been dealt with. I would say that is not on.
Re lack of time. I am afraid I would hit back with the idea better time management is called for (and yes I am a teacher!)

LoopyLoopsCorgiPoops · 03/06/2012 10:22

I have 3 x year 7 classes, 5 x year 8 classes, 3 x year 9 classes (no ks4 this year, thank goodness)

So, each class has 25-30 students, so a conservative of 275 altogether. Each half term is made of approx. 6 weeks, say 10 mins to mark each book, so 2750 minutes, is nearly 46 hours of marking. That's if I only mark each book once per half term. In reality, some get more and some get less, but weekly marking is not possible.

chibi · 03/06/2012 10:27

I have a similar course load, 20 teaching hours/week, so that makes 66 hours/week contact +marking. how long would you like me to spend planning these lessons?

even assuming i can plan each lesson in 15 minutes, that is an extra 5 hours a week. do people really think that a 72 hour week is reasonable? really?

PooshTun · 03/06/2012 10:28

Claire - assuming that you are addressing your post to me, the homework is supposed to take 20min each. In practice it takes DS 45-60min.

Anyway, it should take the teacher about 5 min to mark. (read one A4 side essay, write comments and award a mark).

There are 25 kids per class and 150 kids in the year and a longer school day so its not as if one can use the excuse that its a private school.

LoopyLoopsCorgiPoops · 03/06/2012 11:19

I think Claire's question was to this (odd) comment: "I always thought that good manners would mean the same length of time for marking shod be taken but the teacher to mark work as they had given the dcs to do the work."

LoopyLoopsCorgiPoops · 03/06/2012 11:21

Working on that (bonkers notion of spending as long marking each pieve as child takes to undertake task), as we are expected to set homework of 20-30 minutes (ave 25 let's say), with 275 students, that makes 6875 minutes, or 114.5 hours marking per week. Really?

Kez100 · 03/06/2012 12:06

Sounds like an idea of Son-of-Gove

cricketballs · 03/06/2012 13:31

Grin Kez!

theroseofwait · 03/06/2012 17:35

I understood danceswithyarn's point to mean if you gave a class a week to do their homework, then it should be marked and returned within a week, maybe I'm wrong.

I can honestly say marking is making my life miserable at the moment, I've had a hell of a time getting my very mixed ability year 11s through their public examination this year, and my ks3 marking has slipped. We should mark every two weeks but I have books that have not been touched since Easter, now our marking is being randomly sampled and I'm scared to go to work some days!!

I would like to offer anyone who think they can do it better a chance to come and work in a school for a week or so, we often have lovely ladies pop in because they quite like the idea of teaching children to cook and how hard can it be?! Fast forward 2 weeks later when they're too tired to stand up and wondering how on earth we do it. . .do PM me if anyone fancies it.

Wolfiefan I'm assuming if you have so much time you're either mainscale, or part time or both, I remember thinking like you early on my career and
a couple of big promtions later I completely understand, and Pooshtun if you're paying fees for your children to be in classes of 25, I'd be asking for a refund to be honest. . . . .