Markbooks

[MsMermaid]

There is a bit of a debate raging in our school currently about how useful and necessary markbooks are. Feelings are strong on both sides of the debate and I'm really interested in seeing what opinions are in the wider world.

So do you have a markbook that you fill in regularly?
If you do, how often do you record something in it for each child? Daily? Weekly? Termly?
What do you record? Is it homework marks? Test marks? Specific assessed pieces?
How useful is that data? Do you look back at it a lot or is it more of a paper exercise for management/Ofsted?
Do Ofsted look at it, really? They didn't ask for mine last year, but I'm not sure if that's the norm.

I hope you don't mind me asking questions and not giving my answers just yet. I have no idea how I could get to 12 years of teaching without realising how many different opinions there are on this, and how strongly people feel about their own method.

Here's a (selected!) bit of my Y12 markbook showing homework scores. I've got another section on it for exam results, predicted grades SEN and so on. I have to enter mock and test results onto a spreadsheet at school, but I can then import these into Idoceo so I don't have to enter them twice. SEN info etc was exported from SIMS into a spreadsheet then imported into Idoceo.

I also use Idoceo as my planner and for seating plans.

I have my iPad on my lap as I mark, and it takes seconds to enter a colour for each student for each homework.

I stopped using a paper mark book about three years ago. I used to enjoy filling it in at the beginning of the academic year and did use it to keep a record of homework, review grades and so on but I got so fed up of having to cross names out when set changes were made that I do it all electronically now.

Thank you! Is it more for secondary then?

How do you colour code Noble- do you RAG the students on homework with it? Such a good idea

I use an electronic mark book and our assessment system (Classroom Monitor). CM is viewed daily (I'm in Primary) and updated when I have evidence of targets being achieved. I record homework scores, test scores, spellings, timetables (torture square), maths quick fire tests, reading books etc.

I use all of these each week to inform my planning, much easier electronically than in an old fashioned mark book.

I don't bother with a mark book. I teach small classes and only 4 of them, so not a lot of kids to remember. If I want detail I look back in their books. Exam results, Sen issues etc are stored on our school database.

I know that most parents help with homework, I teach Maths, so no pint recording scores as it's not a true reflection of what the child can do unaided! My weakest pupil always get 100% on home works, as her mum keeps her doing it and helping her until all questions are answered correctly.

With respect then trinity, what purpose does your homework setting serve if you
a) won't accept the result
b) won't use it to track progress
c) won't record the mark

Seems to me you should set these tasks in class when you are there to teach and give them different types of 'homework' which parents can help with.

Point I am making is, you seem to make this argument:

'My classes are small and my kids homework scores are pointless, so I have even less to remember and don't need a workbook'.

This is not actually a case for no markbook, it is a case for better homework setting!!

We have to our markbooks on go4schools. I'm a project based subject so each project gets marked with a numerical grade for different subsections. We also have a column for the homeworks for that project and just put a 1 for outstanding for all homeworks, 4 for awful etc. and we have a notes column too. I think it's really useful for report writing etc. Unlike maths we don't see the kids much and rotate teachers for different projects so sometimes we don't actually really know them so for parents eve it's great to be able to reference how they did with other teachers etc. I don't have any form of paper mark book.

You mention taking a while to find them on the list - that's is why I insist on work being handed in in alphabetical order.