Tips for timesaving or organisation for secondary?

[Rarily]

The tip I've used this term is to number all my exercise books in name order, and then quickly sort them into order for marking. Makes finding the 'spot' to enter the grade much quicker.

Has anyone else got any good tips to ease the workload?

Just out of interest - assuming that you mean alphabetically?? Do you pick out your pupil premium and mark them first?? Or SEN?? Or boys??!!!

I expect you know this one already, but ask students to hand you their books open at the page for marking.

Also you can allow students anything between 30 seconds and 2 minutes to check their work alone or with a peer for things like dates, titles, obvious spellings, full stops, etc. before they hand it in so that you don't waste time having to comment on those things in their books, and they will also develop their proofreading skills. (Bung a checklist specific to the task on the whiteboard or have a generic checklist written or stuck somewhere easy to find in their books which they refer to).

Sam, I presume alphabetically as mark books tend to be alphabetical.

Just came across this thread by chance, and these are all great ideas! I've just started my teacher training in a secondary school, so I'm really keen to find out as many organisational and time-saving tips as possible please :)

I don't do this myself, as it's not allowed within my department's policy, but I've heard that teachers have had stickers printed with specific tailored feedback on them so they can just put the relevant sticker in a student's exercise book instead of filling out a sheet with feedback. Sounds like a really useful timesaver!! I'm getting hopeful now that soon my department might make this into marking policy for us...

Yes Sam just alphabetically. No LockedoutofMN i didn't know that one and will try it - sounds like a good idea. I'm thinking of self marking / peer marking too. Don't know if anyone has any experience / thoughts on this?

I've got a marking timetable that I stick to, with a night allocated to each class. So I always set homework a certain lesson, collect it in a certain lesson knowing that I've got a night where I can mark it before the next time I see them. It's quite good looking at a pile of books and thinking 'your turn isn't till Tuesday'. It also means I don't find myself with an unexpected overload of marking. If I've got exams to mark then I'll look at when it needs doing and set homework for the other classes due marking those days that they can mark in class or is computer-marked so I'm not doubling up my marking.

We don't mark exercise books, and when marking long answer questions in assessments we come up with a feedback grid (sometimes as a dept, sometimes individually). We then put the most common feedback on the grid and give each sentence a number. We write the numbers appropriate onto the kids' work. When they get the work back we put the grid on the board and they have to write the feedback and respond to it. It makes them engage with it and saves time.

Once I've decided when I'll be setting homework I go through my planner and put an H in every lesson where I should be setting it. Then when I'm planning I'm prompted to write the homework next to the H so I don't forget.

When I set homework, I turn to the lesson in my planner when it is due in and copy the homework details so I know exactly what's due.

I always set homework at the start of the lesson too, they copy it down as they come in. Makes it far less likely that I'll forget.

Get a "verbal feedback given" stamp.

If you're in a school that needs you to have a verbal feedback stamp, then leave! Any school that requires you to do more work just to prove that you have done other work, and not for the benefit of the kids is taking the piss.

SaltyRock I used to make those grids with my colleagues in the department, then the school said we weren't allowed to use them anymore. So we switched to writing the number on the work and then displaying what the numbers represented on the whiteboard for the students to copy down, then they stopped us doing that too.

We're also not allowed to use stamps, stickers, or even have students write down a summary of feedback given verbally. We have tried to explain that some of these methods mean that students have to engage more actively with their feedback, but they just want something that looks good if the book is picked up by an inspector, parent, etc. (Even though most of our parents don't speak English).

P.S. Agree with noblegiraffe about the marking / homework timetable.