Teachers no longer marking work. Thoughts?

[Trampire]

I'm not a teacher and neither do I have a dc at this school, but it is in my city so am a bit interested.

www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristol-secondary-school-stopped-marking-803364

It's a local comp whose headteacher has decided to not use grades or traditional marking of students work. Instead they say they're introducing one to one feedback. The HT says it's better for the pupils confidence and gives his teachers a better work/life balance.

Does anyone have experience of a school that does this? Is it effective? Personally I'm not totally convinced that one to one feedback on all work will happen all the time in all cases but that might be me just being a bit cynical.

As a secondary English teacher I would like the freedom to be able to mark that which needs marking and that which doesn’t. A lot of marking is for book checks/Ofsted and the children actually get very little benefit from it. I think this sounds like a great idea.

Just wondering though, if a child does a piece of work and it isn't marked how will they know if it is correct?

Dc get grades each term for exams, but often in MFL/Maths they will mark each others' work. (Which i think is fine as it shows the teacher has gone over the answers in class.) Sometimes the maths teacher puts a stamp in saying "verbal feedback given." Sometimes he marks it and sometimes they do online homework which marks itself.

For MFL, marking each others' is for vocab tests. The teacher marks the occasional exams and written homework

Interesting. I wonder if more schools will adopt it then? Less time marking is surely good for teachers if standards don't drop?

Thinking about it. My dc (Y8) only gets marked in tests (either a grade or a percentage mark) or a big project like History etc.

I don't get marked or assessed on every piece of work I do at work, instead I get regular one to one feedback. I agree it would be more useful to the individuals and anything that eases workload for teachers gets a thumbs up from me.
I am not a teacher.

I'm just wondering if most schools are doing this already why it is big news in our local paper?

Summative assessments are also used to provide benchmarks for progress.

That sounds like the teachers will still be marking to me!

Also ‘live marking’ is also time consuming, but in lesson time not teacher time. When will that be happening and what will the rest of the class be doing in that time?

The quote from the Maths teacher implies that the scheme has been successful with one pupil...

Noble both those points were exactly what I wondered!

I bet they do still mark and yy, when are they doing this 1-1 feedback? Also if they aren't looking at work completed (= marking!!) then how do they know what to say in the feedback?

I am very much making this face

most good schools have been doing this for about 15 years. All the research shows that 'flick & tick' marking is basically a waste of time, giving a grade distracts from the what went well / what to improve comment. Self evaluation is great - pupils use the mark scheme & understand what was needed. This school is behind the times!

They must be reading the work otherwise how do they know what to say at the feedback?

Are they just not writing on it?

I bet one to one feedback takes fucking ages

When I was at school in Holland in the 80s, homework was never marked by the teacher. It was gone through in class - if you were chosen to give an answer and you hadn't done the homework, you got in trouble. Except if you gave the correct answer/working/explanation, of course, because that showed you understood the material. If you then failed assessments because you hadn't done your homework/hadn't revised properly, that was on you. Not marking homework teaches kids to take responsibility for their own learning as well as lessening teacher workload.

If teachers aren't marking work, how will kids remember what was correct or incorrect when they come to look through their books to revise?

To me this would also feel a bit like my boss asking me to produce a report urgently then not looking at it for weeks afterwards.

Homework is really about reinforcing the class learning (ie practising the skills learned in class).

As long as the student does their best, it serves its purpose. Generally students want their work to be appreciated but ‘flick and tick’ does that, as does peer marking in class, especially if the teacher takes in the marks (even if completely unreliable).

It is important to do regular assessments and properly mark them (aka tests). This identifies pupils in need of support and stretch and challenge and also allows a pupil to know how they are doing relative to the public exam they will have to sit.

I am spending less and less time on thorough marking as it just seems that it is mostly not even read (at best given a cursory glance). It seems to me that planning or devoting time to extra curricular activities is a better use of time.

As for revision, mostly pupils use notes made in class (including worked examples), revision notes given out and even the internet and text books. I doubt many of them go over corrected homework.

I would love to see some proper research on this, though.

I prefer giving intervention class feedback and 1-2-1 with students for some pieces of work.

I mark assessments in detail.
If i do an exercise and then make notes to give feedback then students can get more feedback quicker. It's also more effectuve than me writing 'develop your analysis' 10 times and 'add in context more' another 8 times etc.

I want the freedom to mark and give feedback in a way that has impact and sustainable.

Key stage leader.
I think we have it right.

Some pieces are set tasks for all students in the year and must be marked in detail.
Other tasks it's for staff to decide how they mark / give feedback.

It means we can choose which strategy to use with each class. E.g. one of my ks3 classes I mark almost everything and peer assessment would be a waste of time vs a different group where well designed peer assessment can be really good as part of a mixed bag.

Thr main thing is that when we pick books up every book in the department has the same number of pieces marked in detail but beyond that staff decide. We think it is the right balance.

I think feedback in class would be really good, as long as students are clear and noting where they went wrong so they don't look back at their work later and repeat the same mistakes from it. I didn't like the idea of there being nothing immediate. There must also be some checking that they are actually doing the work though and not just good at talking the talk in class.