No work marked by teacher all year.

[countrygirl34]

Posting here as I had some good perspective from teachers here before ad I could use the inside advice.
My Year 9 child has had no work marked by a particular teacher all year. It has been a funny old year but I am amazed that this teacher has managed to get a way with this. They peer marked two end of unit tests in class when not in full lockdown which is odd in itself as the teachers aren't allowed to touch the text books but it's okay for the kids to swap? Other work/tests were submitted on teams and there is not one piece that has been returned. I have documented all of this and sent it in to the subject head but have since read some guidance that says that not all work will be marked. Surely that means that at least they can expect their tests to be marked though? All that revision and no feedback?
I'm feeling very cross on my child's behalf.

I too am finding all this 'not marking work' very odd. Interested in what the responses will be.

They're in year 9, it isn't an exam year, 'grades' mean absolutely nothing, and I'm sure the teacher has a very good idea of how well each individual student is performing. Why would they need to waste their time putting arbitrary numbers on paper when you can just get qualitative feedback by asking and have a better idea of how your kid is doing?

Sorry - I probably wasn’t clear. I would appreciate any kind of feedback- but we have had none at all. It’s my child who would like to know the result of a test that they have studied hard for - and , more importantly, to have the actual test back so they can see where they went wrong. I am also fed up of people implying that Year 9 is not an important year. I come from a family of teachers so I know this isn’t the case.

So much depends on school policy.
Ours requires us to mark "books" every 8 lessons. For me, that's once a fortnight. My RE colleague marks his once every 8 weeks on a rolling programme (he teaches all 230 in year 7!!)
Currently, on the covid timetable, my subject has double lessons. Some people are taking that as 2 lessons a week rather than 4 and marking once a month.
We had a 72 hour quarantine in half term 1: 72 from them to me then 72 back to them. That killed off book marking because it just doesn't work. We were asked to mark on teams.
I use class notebook so I can mark photos of work done at home easily. Some staff went for word but didn't annotate it and just wrote in the feedback box. All are considered acceptable at my school.
The quarantine has now been reduced to 48 hours.
I have a friend in another school where the marking policy is whole class feedback except for tests.
You'll need to check the school policy, and then take it further. If the subject leader hasn't replied, take it to whoever is in charge of teaching and learning. And if they have and you're not satisfied, take it to whoever is in charge of teaching and learning.
It might be that this teacher has marked stuff on teams but not returned it. Or they might not.
We now have a marking amnesty in years 7-10 and 12 so we can do the assessments for y11/13 but parents have been informed, and there is a clear timescale for it.

It's clearly not school policy if this teacher is the only one who hasn't returned work. As a mother of a Year 9 student and a Year 9 teacher, I think this is a poor show and I would also be raising it. I can't bear the thought of students putting their all into a piece of work and not receiving acknowledgement.
Our current policy is to take in books once a half term to mark and to mark everything else on Teams. It can take a while if done rigorously but equally it's possible to do a check and return with a 'Great effort' or whatever.