Prior Weston Primary School and Children s Centre. Marking Policy. Agreed : April 2011 To be reviewed: April 2012

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1 Prior Weston Primary School and Children s Centre Marking Policy Agreed : April 2011 To be reviewed: April 2012

2 Statement of Aims Prior Weston Primary School Is committed to providing relevant and timely feedback to pupils, both orally and in writing. Marking intends to serve the purposes of valuing pupils learning, helping to identify areas for development or next steps, and evaluating how well the learning task has been understood. Marking should aim to be a process of creating a dialogue with the learner, through which feedback can be exchanged and questions asked; the learner is actively involved in the process. Research shows that marking is the most important factor in pupil learning, so this policy is crucial for the school. The effective marking model which we subscribe to states imagine what difference it would make if all children knew what they were good at and knew what they needed to do to improve. We aim to: Provide consistency and continuity in marking throughout the school so that children have a clear understanding of teacher expectations Use the marking system as a tool for formative ongoing assessment Improve standards by encouraging children to give of their best and improve on their last piece of work Develop children s self-esteem through praise and valuing their achievements Create a dialogue which will aid progression Monitoring and judging marking Outstanding Strategies exist to acknowledge / celebrate the achievements of children and they are involved in setting next steps for improvement There is a very good level of response to personalised comments from teachers There is some subsequent response from the teacher Comments from the teacher are particularly focused and diagnostic, revealing very good subject knowledge Children actively demonstrate understanding of next steps

3 Good All children are set relevant, accurate next steps on a regular basis Self-assessment is a regular activity: children know what they are good at and what they need to do to improve Children revisit and respond to previous learning through written, post-task questions Children respond to personalised comments from teachers Satisfactory There is sufficient work in the children s books to allow marking to have impact (reflecting a well-planned curriculum) Work is marked regularly Children know how well they have done in relation to the objective Marking helps to build confidence The majority of marking is about recognising success Some relevant targets are set The teacher s handwriting is easy to read The teacher s spelling and use of standard English is accurate

4 Inadequate Marking is likely to be inadequate if it does little to help children improve. The key features of inadequate marking are the opposite of satisfactory marking: Work is not marked regularly Children do not know how well they have done in relation to the objective Marking does not help to build confidence The majority of marking is not about recognising success No relevant targets are set/ targets are poorly chosen The teacher s handwriting is not easy to read The teacher s spelling and use of Standard English are inaccurate Work is marked incorrectly The advice given to children is inaccurate There is insufficient work in the children s books to allow marking to have impact At Prior Weston we aspire to the criteria described as outstanding marking above. A non-negotiable is that all marking is at least consistently satisfactory. Marking / pupil books / outcomes will be monitored on a fortnightly basis by phase leaders, and half termly by Senior Leadership Team (monitoring and evaluation schedule), where feedback and priorities for development will be given. Further information and examples are given on the effective marking website; this document also links closely to presentation expectations document for class teachers.

5 Principles of good marking Good marking or annotation of children s work should: Be positive, motivating and constructive; Be at the child s level of comprehension; Not penalise children s attempts to expand their vocabulary; Be written in handwriting that is legible and a model for the child Be frequent and regular (what do we think about this statement?) Provide information for the teacher on the success of the teaching; Relate to the Learning Question of the work set, ie science should be marked mainly for the science content, not the punctuation, for example; Positively affect the child s progress. Teachers may not always feel it s appropriate to use stickers and may wish to use peer and self assessment frames / grids instead (see Appendix A). Self assessment needs to be done at the end of a unit of work in order that pupils can reflect on what they have learnt and can identify their next step. Effective marking stickers Effective marking stickers are used both to motivate the pupils and to ensure that marking is as efficient as possible a process for the teacher, in order that the maximum can be achieved for the learner. All stickers used must clearly relate to the learning question and / or success criteria. The following stickers can be used: Success stickers. These are used to praise and make explicit the learning achieved: for example, Fantastic you can share objects into equal groups. These stickers may be differentiated, such that some children may receive a sticker saying, Well done, you are beginning to

6 Target stickers: these are used to make clear the key area which is a next step for the children. Generic targets can be printed / made for key learning objectives, and personalised targets should also be set. Green pen question stickers: teachers should ask children to respond to questions about their learning: for example, which character do you like most? Why? The teacher must write or print a sticker in red, and the child must respond in green. This dialogue should be ongoing and purposeful. If a question is worth writing for a child, it is worth making sure every child is able to respond. These green pen questions should be written at least once a week, once in Numeracy and once in Literacy. They can be written by hand as they may well need to be individually specific. Peer assessment stickers: these must be introduced when the teacher has consistently modelled good marking for the children. They can learn to appraise one another s work which is very powerful. For example, Has your partner used any imaginative vocabulary? Write the best words here. Self assessment stickers: Children self-assess effectively, through use of a traffic light system (green, amber, red) against specific success criteria. Stickers can be used too to provide children with lists of aspects to consider which teacher and child can tack (or you may wish the child to simply colour the traffic light instead). Generic praise stickers, for example, to value Perfect Presentation or Improved Handwriting. Teacher judgement must be employed when considering how many stickers to use. Stickers must not replace personal marking entirely, and will not be effective if they bombard the learner! APP / Blue marking stickers / markers Classroom monitors, APP / blue stickers / markers are to be used for the 5 6 focus children per group in numeracy and writing to demarcate pieces of evidence for each attainment strand, so that accurate highlighting and levelling can inform assessment and next steps in planning.

7 Marking keys and editing In addition, the following keys may help to speed up the process of effective marking. The children should use: Traffic lights (green, amber, red) to indicate for all involved what has been understood, partially understood or not understood at the end of each lesson. It can be used to indicate independent learning; similarly WS for With Adult Support, or Br or Pr to indicate Group or Paired support. Success Criteria stickers will be used to indicate whether the children have met the criteria. These should be assessed/marked by the teacher and on occasions the child. Spelling should be altered under the word in red at the discretion of the teacher (ie it may be just HFW that are changed, or words specifically given in a word bank, etc) Teachers tick the correct letters in a word and underline incorrect letters. P indicate that punctuation needs revisiting // indicates a new paragraph is needed Circle a word to indicate an inappropriate or uninteresting word choice A circle may also indicate a section of work that needs checking in Maths (crosses are discouraged) An upturned v can represent a word (s) missing Finally, when a child is improving their work they must respond to all of the above in the margin or at the end of a piece of work It is often useful to train children to write on every other line Teachers always mark against success criteria Fantastic means you have met the success criteria Well done means you have nearly met the success criteria Great try means you learning to meet the success criteria Each age phase will have a picture icon to indicate the above Each piece of work will a Learning Objective (LO) and most will have differentiated Success Criteria Red pen is used to mark pupils books and to write the green pen question, children respond to green pen questions in green.