Teacher who do exam marking

[AyeWhySwim]

I'm interested in becoming involved in marking for exam boards in addition to teaching but am a bit baffled by the range of boards and courses that people mark.
I teach English and would like to know about any experiences other teachers have - recommendations on what's good to do (or otherwise).
What else goes on through the year in addition to the main summer and autumn sessions?
Thanks!

TeacherS obviously

It's usual to mark for the board that you teach in your school, as that gives you an insight into the process that you can pass on to your colleagues and students - although I don't but there's a whole long story to that!

No work over the year other than the main sessions, although one of my friends moderates A Level coursework and marks exams so he has a long, intense period of work from May to July (also a full time teacher).

Marking has moved online in the last couple of years which has advantages and disadvantages. On the whole, I preferred pen and paper marking, so think about how you'd feel about marking scanned scripts on a computer screen. You need a very good broadband connection, and for me it would be easier if I had a PC rather than a Mac.

I've marked for both AQA and Edexcel in the past. I much prefer AQA. It can be quite intense though, especially if you're working full time as well.

I've stopped teaching now, sahm, but I still mark A level maths. It takes about 3 weeks and is very very intensive. Marking on a screen is really annoying, annotating on their paper as well as inputting part question marks.

I mark for aqa, and I get the feeling they're slightly more irritating to mark. However, they pay very well. I got £3.46 per paper, and completed my full allocation of 400 despite having a 2 yo and a 4 mo.

Good luck, you want to get your application in by Christmas, and be as flexible as possible with what unit you would mark (you can always try to change once they know you're a decent marker)

Thanks for your reply - I should have mentioned I work in a PRU currently so no need for a link to any particular exam board.

I've got a friend who marks Singapore O-level (they use English markers), their exam sittings are different to the UK so you can mark them as well as UK exams. No idea how to get the gig though, they might only hire experienced markers.

I do Edexcel CA and a paper; it works well as my CA deadline is just before the exam marking starts, so intense couple of months but it's been the best CPD I've ever had! It's gives a real insight which I use in my teaching.
The money isn't brilliant but it pays for the holiday spending money

I'm an examiner for AQA, I've done it for years now.
It is very intense and every year I say 'I'm never doing that again' but I did it this year because of the syllabus change.

It is very useful for informing and improving my teaching, it helps me to know what the exam board are really looking for so I can pass this on to my students.

I've finished for this year now and once again I've been saying 'I'm not doing that again next year' but we'll see!

I mark history for edexcel and find it fine. The deadlines are very tight, I've got 2 weeks to mark 180 papers but if
I just do an hour or two each day it's fine. I was cleared to mark on Sunday evening and have until Sunday 16th to Finnish and am making my way steadily through my allocation. I've done 20% so far so should finish ahead of schedule and get my bonus. I don't have any children and my only real distraction at home is a cat which helps.

Finish, I'm not Finnish

Thanks
I'm still in two minds because I have small children and am terrible at doing anything sensible in the evenings.

I am thinking of doing this next year as struggling with the new OCR markschemes for 9-1 History GCSE, I am worried about my "school" work suffering though as I am relatively new to teaching.

Our HT is very keen on staff doing exam marking and thinks that the school benefits from having examiners in as many departments as possible. She definitely doesn't resent us not staying as late in school or stopping extra-curricular activities in order to mark. It's a pretty quiet time of year, especially if you teach a fair bit of y11 and Year 13.

Very much encouraged in our school, and we can take some "frees" generated by the loss of y11 and 13 to help.
I mark ( and team lead on one) 2 AQA papers.
If you are at a pru and so no associated exam baord would you actually get taken on?
Having said that lots of our markers are retired so always wonder how well they adapt to the spec chmges.
It is shed loads of work and not terrible well paid, except if ypu are teaching you are already being paid so it is extra for your eveings and weekends. A massive driver for me is how it helps your classrrom practice, if that wouldn't apply then i would be a lot less keen ( if i was short of cash i would sort some shifts in the local pub for the same/ greater hourly rate and a lot less hasssle)

I am shit at typing btw, sorry!

AQA were begging for English markers this year, and were hiring PGCE students and general graduates so I don't think getting hired would be too difficult for an actual teacher!

Does depend on the subject noble, one of my colleagues couldn't get onto biology marking so tried for Science in society and was roundly rejected because she doesn't teach it ( deapite teaching A leverl nd GCSE bio and triology science)

I mark for AQA and I quite like it. The online system has been a pain this year, but normally I prefer the online system. It is intense work for a couple of weeks (I worked all day Sunday then a couple of hours each night) but the money isn't bad.

I'm retired now but used to mark A level physics for Edexcel. As others have said, the deadlines are very tight (about two weeks) and the money isn't brilliant. If it wasn't for the bonus (for finishing quickly) it wouldn't be worth it. My main reason was because I used to teach the specification. Useful generally, in informing my teaching, but even more useful when doing practice papers with an A2 class because I'd actually marked the same paper when it was live.
But I've given up now. I no longer need the insight, and the thing I really didn't like - found quite stressful, in fact - was their online standardisation system. I imagine it must be even worse for a subject like English. Bit of advice. If you do this and fail an item on the first standardisation set, get straight on the phone to your team leader - you only get one more chance.

But, I still mark Cambridge (CIE) IGCSE physics. I used to teach this specification too (independent school). The whole thing is much more relaxed. Standardisation isn't stressful at all - your team leader will phone you after you've done the standardisation set and have an in-depth discussion with you. Then you make your corrections and you're approved. No bonus system - it's a flat rate per script, and you have four to five weeks to get it finished. Their online marking system is better (IMO) too - with Edexcel you never see the whole script so if a candidate writes outside the box you have to send the item to your team leader, but with Cambridge you can access the whole script yourself if you need to, or mark in question at a time mode otherwise.

I have done moderating and marking this year - well, still doing the marking - for A level Eng lit. I have done it to help pay for my divorce and I don't think I would do both again as it has been very intense. As others have said, the cpd is invaluable and, though the pay isn't great (and they expect you to look at a load of pointless training videos beforehand for nothing too - I never bother and have never had any problems), it's a lump sum that I think would definitely make a difference to most people. I honestly think you would have to do a heck of a lot of pub shifts to make a similar amount and you can do the marking from the comfort of your own home.

If you can do a couple of hours a day, or the equivalent, you will be fine. I am a bit of a technophobe usually, but my subject has moved to online marking this year and I love it. Much quicker and simpler and you don't have a big unsightly pile of papers glaring at you and needing taking to the post office all the time. If I can do it anyone can.

I think the idea of pay being crap depends on your situation. £600 after tax, NI etc is a lot to me and so easily worth 2 weeks of extra work. If you have other stuff you need to do outside school work (such as having small children to look after) or if £600 that isn't much to you then it probably isn't worth it, because it is two weeks of pretty long hours.

I agree about the pay. It's obviously not a life-changing amount of money but it's a couple of hours work a day over two weeks. I'd say it's about 30 hours work in total for the paper I do. I think the pay is reasonable. It pays for me to do nice things in the summer holidays (go to the theatre, days out, nice lunches with my sister etc).

Those of you who mark, how do they allocate the papers to you? Do they allocate you papers for a different region to where you live/work? Different county to yours? Neighbouring schools? Or it doesn't matter.

For online gems you have no idea who the script belongs to, you just see the clip of the answer to say question 1aii.
However you do have to sign an interests form at the start of every year, so this year for instance i declared my own school, ds4s because he was doing gcses ( though not my exam board in my subject) and my neices school 200 miles away ( because she was doing my exam board in my subject). The computer then screens out responses from those schools when presenting them to you, and it means when i am amrking additional pages and unscannables they don't send me any from those centres.