Marking in state/independent

[Wipingsides]

How often are your teens school books actually marked by teachers? My DC go to what's classed as 'good' state school & seem to be doing ok but the majority of work seems to be self assessed or peer marked. Just the odd assessment or actual test seems to reach teachers' eyes. Is this normal these days?! Would also be interested in hearing what experiences those in the private/independent sector have with regards this...

Yeah, like I say @Placido, I’ve heard that before (not from colleagues, incidentally - online) and it’s fairly symptomatic of teaching generally. Something not working well - your fault.

No issues when it’s a right / wrong answer. But a lot of subjects just aren’t and I know for my subject you can put ten experienced teachers in a room and they’ll disagree about what mark an essay should get. Hence moderation.

I just don’t like it. I don’t think it works and I think it’s a lazy answer to classes that are too big and timetables that are too full.

Self assessment is a vital part of education. Not just to reduce teacher workload but to develop skills in students. Critiquing and redrafting their own work are skills that need to be explicitly taught to students. Some teachers are not very good at teaching these and prefer to just mark essays themselves but that prevents students from developing these skills and is poor practice. Many parents and some teachers don’t understand this but anyone who is knowledgeable about teaching and learning will know this. Sadly, schools sometimes have to bow to parental pressure rather than do what is best for the students in the long run.

These modern approaches aren't just used in the classroom. I am an England Hockey trained coach and we use a variety of methods to get children more actively involved in their game. It is far more effective at the end of a session to have children gathered around in a group telling me what they think they could have been doing better, than them listening to me endlessly. I also give them each a turn as referee in practice matches so that they can see the 'whole' game and monitor their peers as I do - and then I teach them to feed back to their peers at the end (sensitively of course.) The more active a team is in their own development, the more intelligent they become as players. We also don't do a warm up as England Hockey believe the only people this pleases is the parents who see it as important to see laps etc. Children under the age of 12 don't need to run to limber up - they are naturally limber already they can crack straight on and not waste time on limbering up. Another example of an old fashioned convention that parents think is needed.

@Cornhill Fair enough. Suspect you are a dying breed though.

Sadly, schools sometimes have to bow to parental pressure rather than do what is best for the students in the long run

Rubbish.

Sorry cornhill I cross posted with you and it looks like I was contradicting you directly- that was not intentional. There are many ways to skin a cat!

@Placido

These modern approaches aren't just used in the classroom. I am an England Hockey trained coach and we use a variety of methods to get children more actively involved in their game. It is far more effective at the end of a session to have children gathered around in a group telling me what they think they could have been doing better, than them listening to me endlessly. I also give them each a turn as referee in practice matches so that they can see the 'whole' game and monitor their peers as I do - and then I teach them to feed back to their peers at the end (sensitively of course.) The more active a team is in their own development, the more intelligent they become as players. We also don't do a warm up as England Hockey believe the only people this pleases is the parents who see it as important to see laps etc. Children under the age of 12 don't need to run to limber up - they are naturally limber already they can crack straight on and not waste time on limbering up. Another example of an old fashioned convention that parents think is needed.

Not just parents. Physios and sports scientists too. Warming up games are fun for a start.

dying breed yes I know the purple pen of progress has been embraced wholeheartedly as the way, the truth and the life.

Redrafting can be important, I agree, but where I suspect we disagree is that I think it should be done after teacher input.

If you are going to share success criteria after the essay and have students improve, then why not share it before?

In other words, if they knew how to improve, they’d have done so.

And (for example) if my students do a poor essay on the concept of class in An Inspector Calls, I should go back and teach that again, but it’s unlikely that essay title will come up again and general good teaching should be the approach, really. In other words, rather than endlessly redrafting one response, a more general ‘let’s re familiarise ourselves with this text and themes in it’ is surely better.

Sorry if rushed, wrangling with small child.

@Kikkomam Nope. Not under 12. Simply not true.
And England Hockey advocate teaching from within the game. So not endless drills that mean that some children are bored waiting for their turn and standing on their stick. You play a game and then you blow a whistle and point something out and then everyone has a go at the skill then you restart the game. Childrens' hockey going through brilliant phase in this country right now at club level due to the modernisation of coaching methods.

@Cornhill

That’s what I’ve heard so many times MrsHamlet, and we don’t all have to agree, but I remain unconvinced

I teach English. I spend a lot of time with students looking at markschemes and model answers and where the marks would be awarded. By year 10 students should very easily be able to identify in their own and others' work whether they have covered the assessment objectives. If they self assess, notice one is missing, and correct that, it's a good habit for exams. I expect them to do that before they hand anything in to me. I still mark every essay they write so that I can address the gaps when I next teach them.

cornhill I do see your point and I don’t teach an essay subject so you are certainly the expert here. Xx

I do often share success criteria with students but they still miss off things I have told them to include so I guess my first bit of feedback is “go back to the success criteria and double check you have address all the points” 9/10 times they haven’t!

[quote Placido]@Kikkomam Nope. Not under 12. Simply not true.
And England Hockey advocate teaching from within the game. So not endless drills that mean that some children are bored waiting for their turn and standing on their stick. You play a game and then you blow a whistle and point something out and then everyone has a go at the skill then you restart the game. Childrens' hockey going through brilliant phase in this country right now at club level due to the modernisation of coaching methods.[/quote]
Yes girls football the same and long overdue. I coach teens though and we definitely warm up a bit first.

Sometimes the mark schemes can be quite ambiguous as well, even with ‘student friendly’ success criteria.

I still mark every essay they write so that I can address the gaps when I next teach them

Well, quite

@Kikkomam every essay not very piece of work or homework. Big difference.

I don’t mind self assessment when it’s straightforward comprehension questions like ‘in what year was A Christmas Carol written’, where it is right or wrong. I just don’t like the trend for teachers not assessing at all.

@Kikkomam yup we warm up 12plus. The younger ones don’t need it as not going to have injury if not limbering up they aren’t built like that. We have an hour and half with younger ones and we prefer to spend that on an actual game and learning within the games than wasting time with stretching and running laps. We play a game, blow whistle to look at issues within game, then we do specific skills at the end of the game and some fun wind down things like raid the nest. Focus is always on the game and teaching from within.

I check their homework to make sure that a) they've done it b) they've done it correctly. But I certainly don't "mark" everything they write down in their book.

I'm a maths teacher, it would be a complete waste of my time to tick and cross answers in a book that a student is perfectly capable of ticking and crossing themselves.

The best feedback is immediate, so going around the class and talking to the kids about their work is better than taking a class set in, marking and then handing back a week later when the kid has forgotten what they're doing.

Writing the same comment on kids books over and over because they're making the same mistake is inefficient. Whole class feedback is better for this.

Teachers marking homework is a waste of time - so many kids get a parent or tutor to help, or copy their mate's work, or dash it off on the bus. What's the point in spending precious time marking that when you could choose to mark something done in class in silence instead that represents their best effort?

There's a lot of self-marking in maths!

Yes sure I can see how it would be pointless in maths.

The problem that a lot of indie teachers are finding from what my friends say is that there are plenty of customers like @XelaM who think that they are paying for a certain style of teaching (sometimes even comparing it to their own 1970’s indie classrooms) and they want that to be visible to them otherwise they aren’t getting their money’s worth. Even if it isn’t effective, it needs to be visible to parents via a red pen.

I am not familiar with the trend for not assessing at all cornhill all the teachers I know assess constantly.

Not all indies. I don't get the impression ours listens to the moans of parents - they have a way of doing things and stick to it - seems to be working as results are extremely high despite being only partially selective.

Not marking books doesn't mean no assessing. I mark exam papers and mini assessments, I don't mark books. It's a waste of my time to mark a book. I circulate during lessons and see what students are finding tricky then tackle that in the lesson (or on the next lesson if needed). Whole class feedback from assessments goes in books.