AQA exploiting teachers

[Mrskeats]

I marked for AQA this summer; the English Language GCSE paper 2.
I have now found out that not only do they not pay for standardising as they used to but they also don't pay when you mark a 'seeded' question.
This means that I have marked hundreds pf questions without pay.
This is compounded by the fact that their pay is shocking anyway; I have worked out that I have been earning less than minimum wage.
I have written to the chief exec to complain. Anyone else shocked by how little they value people who are carrying out this important and stressful task?

I was marking English so essay types answers are time consuming to read and assess, esp the creative part

For my exam board, you have 5 practice scripts, then 10 standardisation scripts. Then team leader feedback after which you may or may not be approved to mark. If you are not approved, you get another chance at another 10 scripts.

These are full scripts, not clips for each question.

I always find that marking standardisation scripts takes quite long as you are still familiarising yourself with the paper, the mark scheme, the queries on the examiners forum (do I accept this or that, yes or no?). I can spend hours familiarising myself with everything and I'd rather have markers who spent their time doing that on the standardisation scripts than were still doing that on "live" scripts tbh.

Standardisation is an integral part of the process and you want to ensure your markers go through the process thoroughly - not simply getting through it as quickly as possible so they can move onto the paid work.

"You have to complete five clips for each question, it does not take terribly long, then as i say there is a phone call with your team leader"

Easy to say it doesn't take long when it's only GCSE science.... completely different matter when it's A level Philosophy!

The original
Hopefully my markers have done that pre standardisation.
Where they can view as many clips of ech question as they want, so for the simple ones a couple would be ample, for the extended answers then they may want to examine rather more student responses.

Rosie, fair point. However, since standardisation is an integral part of the process, as is comparison of marking against seeds, it should be paid just the same as any other script. Good markers are already thin enough on the ground. If exam boards value people who are well qualified for the task and can complete it to a high standard, it requires a pay which is reflective of that. These exams are critical to students' futures. You don't want to have the task carried out almost entirely by people who are inexperienced or unqualified to do so.

Couldn't agree more theoriginal
I don't feel valued at all

Teachers who marked A Level scripts were not happy with AQA pay this summer at my school, including me. If they paid a little more and spend less on advertising for examiners both AQA and teachers might be happy. The adverts are already out for the 2018 exam season