Marking by @CarolineMortlo1

Name: Caroline Mortlock
Twitter name: @CarolineMortlo1
Sector: Secondary
Subject taught (if applicable): English
Position: Lead Practitioner
What is your advice about? Marking

1: Buy supersized rubber bands from Staples to keep exercise books in manageable compact stacks. Two will do the trick.

2: Always keep a notebook running while you mark: spellings, issues, misconceptions – makes the feedback/DIRT lesson way more effective.

3: Choose a place to mark where you do just that – conditioning will soon help you mark more quickly and happily when you sit there because that’s where you always do it.

4: Stack marked books open at the place where the grade is to enable quick entering of the data into a markbook or onto a spreadsheet when the set is finished.

5: Even if you’ve hardly any time, mark two or three books of a waiting set – once you’ve started, it will be easier to continue.

Marking by @annieblack01

Name: Annie Black
Twitter name: @annieblack01
Sector: Secondary
Subject taught (if applicable): English
Position: Teacher
What is your advice about? Marking

1: Erasable pens are your friends – we all make mistakes, and it looks awful if you’ve corrected a student’s spelling and made an error.

2: Mark part-sets of books. Put sticky dots on the front of books when marked (use a different colour next time) so you know which have been done, and students know.

3: Put a post-it page marker on each page that needs student response. It saves them searching through for marking, and you can check it easily.

4: If it’s messy, don’t mark it – students will soon get the idea if they are asked to rewrite work which is sloppily presented.

5: Who are you marking for? If it won’t benefit the students or inform your planning, don’t do it.

Marking by @miss_trainee

Name: Anonymous
Twitter name: @miss_trainee
Sector: Secondary
Subject taught (if applicable): English
Position: NQT & Yr 7 Eng Curriculum Lead
What is your advice about? Marking

1: Keep on top of it! Little & often means it won’t turn into an impassable mountain.

2: Cycle through peer assessment, self assessment & teacher marking = you only mark 1/3.

3: Scaffold peer/self-assessment. Turn success criteria into tick boxes so students give meaningful advice.

4: Make sure they act on it! Anything that didn’t get a tick (above) in and “EBI” must be redrafted.

5: Don’t mark everything. Starters etc usually don’t need marking. Focus efforts on extended pieces.

Marking Stress-Savers by @TheMathsMagpie

Name: Kate Davies
Twitter name: @TheMathsMagpie
Sector: Secondary
Subject taught (if applicable): Maths
Position: Associate Assistant Head/AST
What is your advice about? Marking Stress-Savers

1: Ask students to leave their books open in a pile at a task you particularly want to mark.  Time saved already not having to flick through 30 books to find the right page!

2: Carry your red/purple/green pen around with you in class at all times and ‘live’ mark as much as you can every lesson.

3: Stagger your marking at the beginning of a cycle (some classes after 2 lessons, some after 3, some 4 etc) and then make a rolling timetable and do your best to stick to it.

4: Use stickers and stamps – buy in or you can make your own in lots of ways. They stand out to students and save us writing the same thing over and over again!

5: Realise you need to give in-depth feedback? Don’t write an essay – use a post-it note sticking out of their book as a reminder to speak to them next time you see the class.

Reducing Time Spent on Marking by Antony Hattersley

Name: Antony Hattersley
Twitter name: None given
Sector: Primary
Subject taught (if applicable): Primary
Position: Year 5 teacher
What is your advice about? Reducing time spent on marking

1: Don’t try to follow the school marking policy to the letter as this will take away your life. Work smart, instead.

2: Get the children to self-mark and/or peer-mark every single piece of work. Build in 5-10 minutes of each lesson dedicated to this.

3: Use icon marking occasionally. (Instead of writing a next step comment, write a next step icon and the child writes out what the icon means).

4: When you have to write next step comments, write them out really big so that they stand out. I stick in an A4 “Assessment” sheet so that they look more than they are.

5: Do not spend time writing out what the pupils have achieved during the lesson (in pink in many schools). If absolutely necessary, highlight the objective in pink instead.

Marking by @sputniksteve

Name: Sputnik Steve
Twitter: @sputniksteve
Sector:  Secondary, Independent
Subject: English
Position: Teacher
5 Bits of Advice About: Marking

1. Use questions instead of statements for targets. Get them thinking.
2. Use symbols for common targets such as T: Q (meaning use quotations).
3. Mark as much as you can in the lesson.
4. Give kids time to respond to your marking, but don’t mark all their responses.
5. Use lots of self assessment: it saves you time. But peer assessment is crap.